ROME (AP) – The murder conviction of US student Amanda Knox has not damaged US-Italian relations, despite suggestions the verdict was tainted by anti-American sentiment, a top Italian diplomat said yesterday.

After a tense weekend, the diplomat sought to quell speculation of a full-blown crisis, saying that no criticism had come from the US Secretary of State.

"Who criticised?" asked Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, speaking to reporters in Brussels. "Certainly not Hillary Clinton. Let's not create confusion."

Clinton, speaking on Sunday, said she had not looked into the case but would meet with anybody who had concerns.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian C. Kelly said Clinton was interested in the case and intended to speak with Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state, who has questioned the fairness of the trial.

Asked whether the State Department believed Knox had been treated fairly, Kelly said, "I don't have any indications to the contrary. I do know that our embassy in Rome was very closely involved in this. They visited Amanda Knox. They have monitored the trial."

He added: "We are not going to comment too much on an ongoing legal process."

Knox was convicted at the weekend of sexually assaulting and murdering her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, and sentenced to 26 years in jail.

Her co-defendant and former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito of Italy, was found guilty of the same charges and sentenced to 25 years in prison. All were studying in Perugia at the time of the 2007 slaying.

Knox and Sollecito have been behind bars since shortly after the killing. They have maintained their innocence and plan to appeal.

The jury in Perugia must issue the rationale for its ruling within the next 90 days.

The verdict shocked the Knox family and other supporters of the 22-year-old from Seattle. They blamed the decision largely on what they called prosecutors' character assassination of Knox.

Sen. Cantwell said in a statement that she had "serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted this trial."

She said "other flaws in the Italian justice system on display in this case" included negligent handling of evidence and harsh treatment of Knox after her arrest, a charge Italian police have denied.

Many noted that the jury, two judges and six civilians, had not been sequestered during the yearlong trial, and could therefore be influenced by news coverage.

Media interest in the case has been intense since Kercher's body was found in a pool of blood on November 2, 2007, in the apartment she shared with Knox.

Saturday's verdict was delivered in the middle of the night in a packed courtroom, with hundreds of cameras and photographers assembled outside.

Knox has alternately been depicted as a cold-blooded "she-devil" or an innocent foreigner who fell victim of a poor justice system. In the United States, the coverage has been largely favourable to the American and critical of the Italian handling of the case.

Lawyers say misunderstandings were at least partially due to differences between the US and Italian justice systems.

For example, the Italian system gives the presiding judge a great deal of discretion over the use of circumstantial evidence, said a criminal lawyer, Manrico Collaza. But he noted that allowing the next level of appeal, as Italy does, to deal with the facts of the case – and not be limited to issues of law – acts as a balance.

"Many defendants have been saved by it," Collaza said.

Massimo Consolini, an expert on international law, said criticism of the Italian judicial system has centered on the length of trials that has led to many charges being dropped because of a statute of limitations.

"It's not that one doesn't get a fair trial," he said. It's about "how long it takes to get justice."

He said "the prospects are good" for Knox to win a change on appeal.

It will be months before the appeals can begin, and even longer to complete them. Knox and Sollecito might well have spent three years in jail by then. Sollecito was moved to a new prison in Terni yesterday, said one of his attorneys, Luca Maori.

Knox was "tranquil" when she was visited yesterday by some family members, said one of her lawyers, Luciano Ghirga. She has asked for permission to work in the prison laundry, and also intends to continue her education by pursuing correspondence courses with the University of Washington, the lawyer said.

Some in Italy were annoyed by criticism in the US media and fired back.

Corriere della Sera, the country's leading newspaper, said yesterday that in America, "the passport is more important than an alibi."

"The (US) administration cannot close Guantanamo, yet it finds the time to think about Perugia," the newspaper said.

Other cases in the past have stirred tension between the two countries, including the 2005 shooting death of an Italian intelligence officer in Iraq at the hands of a US soldier.

In 1998, after a US Marine jet sliced a ski gondola's cables in northern Italy killing 20 people, a US military jury acquitted the pilot of manslaughter. (The pilot was later sentenced to six months in jail and was dismissed from the Marines for helping to destroy a videotape of the flight.)

More recently, an Italian court convicted in absentia 23 Americans – most of them CIA agents – on charges of kidnapping an Egyptian terror suspect.