Amanda addresses the court:
"I'ma bit nervous. I'm the same person I was 4 years ago. The only thing different is my suffering. In 4 years I've lost my friends in the most terrible and unexplainable way. My trust in the authorities and police has been damaged. I've had to face charges that are unfair without basis, and I'm paying with my life for something I haven't done. 4 years ago I was younger. But I was also fundamentally younger, because I had never suffered in my life. I didn't know tragedy. It awas something on TV. I never had to face so much fear, tragedy, suffering. I didn't know how to interpret this. Face it. Internalize it when I found out Meredith had been murdered. I couldn't believe it. Howwas it possible? Then I was scared because a person with whom I'd been sharing my life, abedroom next to mine, has been murdered. And if I had been there that night i"d be dead as she is. The only difference was I was at Raffaele's. And also later because I had no one. He was everything to me at that moment. At that time I owe everything to him. I had a sense of duty to the authorities and I trusted them because they were there to find whow as guilty and I trusted them blindly, absolutely. I put myself at their disposal comepletely in those days. The night of the 5th November I had just been arrested, manipulated. I am not what they say I am. Perversity, violence. I repsect life and people, and haven't doe the things they suggest. I haven't raped, murdered, stolen. I wasn't present for that crime. I didn't know Rudy. I remember the police asked me to give a list of all the poeple Meredith and I had met and I mentioned of a black guy that we had met with the boys downstairs, but I didn't even know his name. I never had contact with him. They say I knew him, no. I have never done the things they say I have done. They say 'It just happens like that'. I had a good relationship with my flatmates, I was untidy, but we had a very good relationship. I was sharing ,my life with Meredith. We were friends. We would get worried for me when I would go to work. ALways kimd to me. Meredith has been murdered. And I always wanted justice for her. I never tried toe scape the truth. I insist that after 4 desperate years, our innocence, because it's true and it has to be defended and recognized. I want to go back home, back to my life. I don'r want to be punished, to have my life taken away from me for things I haven't committed because I am innocent. Raffaele is innocent. And (she pauses) I deserve freedom because we have done nothing to deserve this. I have high respect for this court and would like to thank you and for this reason justice."