Raffaele Sollecito plans reunion with Amanda Knox in Seattle this year

Three weeks after he and Amanda Knox were cleared of murdering the British student Meredith Kercher, Raffaele Sollecito has been reported as saying that he hoped to travel to the US to visit Miss Knox before Christmas.

Ms Knox, 24, was whisked back to Seattle with the prospect of lucrative book contracts and TV work, but Mr Sollecito, 27, has until now kept a low profile on his lawyers' advice after their convictions were quashed on 3 October by Perugia's court of appeal.

In an interview published in Oggi yesterday he said: "I'll go to visit Amanda in Seattle; she invited me. I accepted joyfully.

"And who's to say it won't be before Christmas. I want to see her, to talk to her, to look in her eyes." He added: "We talk on the phone or write to each other every day. We have so many things to say to each other having passed four years in a circle of hell that crushed us."

Mr Sollecito and Ms Knox were found guilty of murdering and sexually assaulting Ms Kercher, 21, who was found semi-naked, with her throat cut, in September 2007 in her bedroom in the house she shared with Ms Knox. She and Mr Sollecito had been seeing each other for a week before the killing. They had been sentenced to 26 and 25 years, respectively, until an appeal that called into question the reliability of DNA evidence used to convict them.