PERUGIA, Italy — Amanda Knox tearfully told an Italian appeals court today she did not kill her British roommate, pleading for the court to free her so she can return to the United States after four years behind bars.

Moments later, the court began deliberations.

Knox fought back tears as she spoke in Italian to the eight members of the jury..

“I’ve lost a friend in the worst, most brutal, most inexplicable way possible,” she said of the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old Briton who shared an apartment with Knox when they were students in Perugia. “I’m paying with my life for things that I didn’t do.”

Knox and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito, Knox’s former boyfriend from Italy, were convicted in 2009 of sexually assaulting and murdering Kercher, who was stabbed to death. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, Sollecito to 25. They both deny wrongdoing.

Presiding Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann said the jury would not emerge before 2 p.m. U.S. time at the earliest.

The verdict will be broadcast live.