EGN NEWS DESK
Amanda Knox, an American who was convicted after which exonerated of murdering her housemate whereas they have been learning in Italy, on Wednesday misplaced one other trial in an Italian courtroom towards slander costs associated to the 2007 killing.
Ms. Knox was convicted by a courtroom in Florence on costs that she had slandered a person who ran a bar the place she labored by unjustly accusing him of killing her housemate, the 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, in 2007. Ms. Knox was sentenced by the courtroom to 3 years in jail, time she has already served.
Ms. Knox was initially discovered responsible of slandering the person, Diya Lumumba, often known as Patrick, in 2009, a conviction that was upheld by varied Italian courts. At the time of the killing, Mr. Lumumba ran a bar known as Le Chic the place Ms. Knox labored half time.
Ms. Knox declined to talk to reporters after the ruling on Wednesday. Standing on the entrance of the courtroom, she appeared distressed and held her husband, Christopher Robinson, in a protracted embrace.
“Amanda may be very upset,” one among her legal professionals, Carlo Dalla Vedova, mentioned after the decision was issued. He mentioned that she had been trying ahead to the trial as a method of placing an finish to “17 years of judicial process.”
Her protection group mentioned it will learn the courtroom’s full written ruling, which is predicted inside 60 days, and would then most certainly attraction to Italy’s highest courtroom.
Speaking to a courtroom filled with journalists earlier Wednesday, Ms. Knox, referring to her feedback about Mr. Lumumba in 2007, described “the worst night time of my life,” and mentioned that she had been bullied by the police into accusing an harmless man of homicide.
She instructed the courtroom, talking in Italian and together with her voice cracking at occasions, that she had been a frightened 20-year-old who had been tricked and was “psychologically destabilized.” She mentioned she couldn’t perceive why the police, “who I had been raised to belief and obey,” have been pressuring her to confess to one thing that was not true and to signal a doc that was little greater than “a mixture of incoherent recollections.”
The listening to on Wednesday is the most recent flip in a authorized journey whose echoes proceed to reverberate practically 17 years after the homicide of Ms. Kercher, a British pupil, elicited headlines all over the world and turned Ms. Knox right into a tabloid staple.
A European courtroom ruling and a change in Italian legislation allowed a brand new attraction by Ms. Knox over the slander costs, and Italy’s highest courtroom in October ordered a retrial, which started in April.
Ms. Knox grew to become a family title in 2007 when she was arrested together with her boyfriend on the time, Raffaele Sollecito, then 23, for the homicide of Ms. Kercher throughout what prosecutors described as a intercourse sport gone fallacious. All three have been learning within the picturesque central Italian metropolis of Perugia.
Ms. Knox was convicted in 2009 of the killing by an Italian courtroom however acquitted on attraction. She returned to the United States in 2011 whereas her case bounced between varied courts till she and Mr. Sollecito have been exonerated by Italy’s highest courtroom in 2015.
Ms. Knox, arriving early on the courthouse on Wednesday, needed to navigate a crowd of digicam operators ready for her to look. One of her legal professionals mentioned that she had been inadvertently struck within the brow by a digicam.
Speaking to the courtroom, recalling the occasions that led her to accuse Mr. Lumumba, Ms. Knox mentioned that Ms. Kercher had been the “sufferer of horrible violence.” In the times after Ms. Kercher’s dying, Ms. Knox mentioned that she had been “underneath shock and exhausted” and had by no means felt “so weak in my life.”
It was at that time, she mentioned, throughout a nightlong interrogation, that the police pressured her into naming Mr. Lumumba, with whom she had exchanged some textual content messages that night time. She mentioned one officer had slapped her.
In a handwritten assertion the morning after the interrogation, she recanted her statements and wrote of her confusion: “I wish to clarify that I’m very uncertain of the verity of my statements as a result of they have been made underneath the pressures of stress, shock and excessive exhaustion.”
Mr. Lumumba, who now lives in Krakow, Poland, didn’t attend Wednesday’s listening to and has not responded to requests for remark.
Since returning to the United States, Ms. Knox, now 36 and a mom of two, has grow to be an advocate for individuals incarcercerated for crimes they didn’t commit and a campaigner for felony 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, just lately 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.
Although Ms. Knox recanted her statements accusing Mr. Lumumba, he was arrested, held in jail for 2 weeks and launched solely after one among his purchasers supplied an 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 together with her husband, 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 instructed the total fact about what occurred to Meredith and solely anyone who was concerned within the crime would ever even make statements that implicated themselves and others.”
There are not any recordings of the interrogations that night time, and Italian law enforcement officials sued Ms. Knox for slander for her depiction of the interrogation. She was tried and acquitted on these costs in 2016.
In 2019, Europe’s high human rights courtroom dominated that Ms. Knox had been disadvantaged of enough 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 courtroom additionally raised questions in regards to the position of Ms. Knox’s interpreter, and mentioned that Ms. Knox’s statements in the course of the interrogation “had been taken in an environment of intense psychological stress.”
At 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 manager to deflect consideration from herself and derail the investigation.
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 consumer. Because of the accusation, Mr. Lumumba misplaced his enterprise, and he left Italy along with his household.
“I’m very sorry I used to be not robust sufficient to withstand the stress of the police and that he suffered for it,” Ms. Knox mentioned on Wednesday earlier than the ruling.
Another of Ms. Knox’s legal professionals, Luca Lupária Donati, known as the decision on Wednesday “a critical judicial error,” including, “We received’t cease right here.”
