MOSCOW, September 8 (RAPSI) - Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were acquitted of murder accusations by an Italian court because of “stunning flaws” in the investigation process, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.

A panel of judges acquitted Knox and Sollecito of the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher, citing lack of evidence to prove their guilt beyond reasonable doubt, according to The Guardian.

The court reportedly criticized prosecutors and lower courts for a failure to find a proper motive behind Kercher's murder.

In 2009, Knox was sentenced to 26 years for the murder of her roommate, UK exchange student Meredith Kercher. But two years later an appeals court overturned the verdict, accepting the lawyers’ argument that crucial DNA evidence had been contaminated by the police. In 2013, Italy’s Supreme Court ruled that the case be returned for retrial.

In 2014 an appeals court in Florence upheld the guilty verdict against Knox in an in-absentia retrial and sentenced her to 28.5 years of imprisonment for Kercher’s murder.

In March, 2015, Knox and Sollicito were acquitted of murder by the Court of Cassation. 

The court has also found her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, guilty and confirmed his previous sentence of 25 years.

In 2007, Meredith Kercher, aged 21, was found half-naked with her throat cut in the apartment she shared with Knox and two Italian girls in the university town of Perugia. According to investigators, Knox, then 19, and Sollecito raped and killed Meredith because she refused to participate in their drug-fuelled orgy.  Knox and Sollecito claim that the killer is small-time drug dealer Rudy Hermann Guede, who is serving 16 years for this murder.