Amanda Knox, the American who was convicted after which exonerated of murdering her housemate whereas they had been finding out in Italy, is predicted on Wednesday to look once more in an Italian court docket — this time to defend herself in opposition to slander expenses associated to the 2007 killing.
It’s the newest twist in a dramatic authorized journey whose echoes proceed to reverberate practically 17 years after the homicide of the housemate, Meredith Kercher, a British pupil, elicited headlines all over the world and turned Ms. Knox right into a tabloid staple.
Ms. Knox is being tried once more on expenses that she slandered the proprietor of a bar the place she labored by accusing him of killing Ms. Kercher, who was stabbed. She was convicted of the slander cost in 2009 and it was upheld by numerous Italian courts.
However a European court docket ruling and a change in Italian regulation allowed a brand new attraction by Ms. Knox, and Italy’s highest court docket in October ordered a retrial, which started in April in an appellate court docket in Florence. A verdict is predicted on Wednesday.
For Ms. Knox, an acquittal would mark the top of a protracted ordeal. Writing on the social media platform X on Monday, Ms. Knox mentioned she would seem within the court docket and hoped to “clear my title as soon as and for the entire false expenses in opposition to me.”
Ms. Knox grew to become a family title in 2007 when the then 20-year previous American was arrested with Raffaele Sollecito, 23, her boyfriend, for the homicide of her 21-year-old housemate, Ms. Kercher, throughout what prosecutors described as a intercourse recreation gone unsuitable. All three had been finding out within the picturesque central Italian metropolis of Perugia.
Ms. Knox was convicted in 2009 of the killing by an Italian court docket however acquitted on attraction. She returned to the US in 2011 whereas her case bounced between numerous courts till she and Mr. Sollecito had been exonerated by Italy’s highest court docket in 2015.
The conviction for slander in opposition to the bar proprietor, Diya Lumumba, also referred to as Patrick, was upheld all through her numerous trials.
Since returning to the US, Ms. Knox, now 36 and the mom of two babies, has grow to be an advocate for individuals incarcercerated for crimes they didn’t commit and a campaigner for legal justice reform.
Rudy Guede, a Perugia resident with a police historical past of break-ins, was tried individually and convicted within the homicide case. He served 13 years of a 16-year-sentence and was launched in 2021, not too long ago making headlines after a former girlfriend accused him of bodily abusing her. His lawyer mentioned this week that the case involving the previous girlfriend was nonetheless being investigated.
Mr. Lumumba, who on the time ran Le Stylish, a bar the place Ms. Knox labored half time, grew to become collateral injury within the case after Ms. Knox recognized him as Ms. Kercher’s killer throughout an all-night interrogation a couple of days after the homicide.
Ms. Knox recanted inside hours of signing two statements accusing him, and people statements had been later dominated inadmissible in court docket. However Mr. Lumumba was arrested, held in jail for 2 weeks and launched solely after certainly one of his shoppers offered an hermetic alibi.
Mr. Lumumba sued for slander, and Ms. Knox was discovered responsible and sentenced to 3 years, which she served throughout her 4 years in jail.
In a December 2023 episode of “Labyrinths,” the podcast she hosts along with her husband, Christopher Robinson, Ms. Knox mentioned the slander conviction nonetheless disturbed her.
For some, she mentioned, it was “proof that I’m a liar and I’m an unsavory particular person and that I’ve one thing to cover and I’ve by no means advised the complete reality about what occurred to Meredith and solely someone who was concerned within the crime would ever even make statements that implicated themselves and others.”
Ms. Knox — who had arrived in Perugia simply two months earlier than the homicide — has maintained that she was coerced into accusing Mr. Lumumba throughout a nightlong interrogation by which she had no authorized illustration. Through the interrogation, Ms. Knox mentioned she was slapped on the again of the top by the police.
There are not any recordings of the interrogations that evening, and Italian cops had sued Ms. Knox for slander for her depiction of the interrogation. She was tried and acquitted in 2016.
In 2019, Europe’s prime human rights court docket dominated that Ms. Knox had been disadvantaged of satisfactory authorized help whereas being interrogated, violating her proper to a good trial, and ordered Italy to pay her 18,400 euros, or about $21,000 on the time, in damages, prices and bills. The court docket additionally raised questions in regards to the position of Ms. Knox’s interpreter, and mentioned that Ms. Knox’s statements throughout the interrogation “had been taken in an environment of intense psychological stress.”
On the April listening to associated to the slander case, the Italian prosecutor and Carlo Pacelli, Mr. Lumumba’s lawyer, argued that Ms. Knox had knowingly accused the bar proprietor to deflect consideration from herself and derail the investigation.
Jurors on the listening to Wednesday shall be requested to contemplate the four-page assertion she wrote to recant the 2 signed statements she made accusing Mr. Lumumba, “in addition to the context and the proof on file,” Mr. Pacelli mentioned in a phone interview. Though she knew his shopper was harmless, Ms. Knox by no means relayed that reality to investigators, he mentioned.
Within the handwritten assertion, she writes of her confusion: “I need to clarify that I’m very uncertain of the verity of my statements as a result of they had been made underneath the pressures of stress, shock and excessive exhaustion.”
Ms. Knox had been ordered to pay damages to Mr. Lumumba, however Mr. Pacelli mentioned she had by no means given any cash to his shopper. Due to the accusation, Mr. Lumumba misplaced his enterprise and he left Italy along with his household. He now lives in Krakow, Poland, and didn’t reply to requests for remark.
“It is a trial that from time to time provides some very stunning twists and turns,” Mr. Pacelli mentioned.
