Amanda Knox, the 36-year-old podcaster, was recently reconvicted of slandering a bar owner, Patrick Lumumba, in a case linked to the 2007 murder of British student Meredith Kercher.
Knox, who had hoped that the retrial in Italy would finally clear her name, expressed her disappointment and said, "I will walk into the very same courtroom where I was reconvicted of a crime I didnt commit, this time to defend myself yet again."
In 2009, Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were initially convicted of Kercher's murder. However, after a series of inconsistent verdicts, they were ultimately exonerated by Italy's highest court in 2015. The murder conviction was instead given to Rudy Guede, who was sentenced to 16 years in prison, reduced from 30 years following an appeal.
Despite her exoneration in the murder case, Knox still faced a 2011 slander conviction related to Lumumba, whom she had accused of killing Kercher. During the recent hearing, Knox pleaded with the two Italian judges and six civil jury members to clear her of the slander charge. She claimed that she had falsely accused Lumumba due to intense police pressure, stating that she was "scared, tricked and mistreated."
Knox's lawyer, Carlo della Vedova, expressed his client's bitterness over the verdict and announced plans to appeal. Knox herself apologized to the court, saying, "I am very sorry that I was not strong enough to resist the pressure of police." She also insisted that she did not know who the murderer was and that the police had threatened her with 30 years in prison.
However, Lumumba's lawyers argued that their client's reputation had suffered regardless of whether Knox knew who the murderer was. Lumumba's lawyer, Carlo Pacelli, stated that Lumumba had become known as the "monster of Perugia" after Knox's accusation. He also revealed that Knox had been ordered to pay Lumumba's legal fees and compensation, though the exact amount has not yet been determined.
The murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student at the University of Leeds, drew global attention due to the involvement of Knox, then a 20-year-old exchange student, and her new Italian boyfriend, Sollecito. Nearly two decades later, the case continues to fascinate the world.
Despite Knox's exoneration and Guede's conviction, doubts about her role in the murder persist, particularly in Italy. Knox's recent court appearance was prompted by a 2019 European court ruling that Italy had violated her human rights during a long night of questioning following Kercher's murder. She had been deprived of both a lawyer and a competent translator.
In November 2021, Italy's highest Cassation Court overturned the slander conviction that had withstood five trials, ordering a new trial. This decision was made possible by a 2022 Italian judicial reform that allows cases with definitive verdicts to be reopened if human rights violations are found.
The court was ordered to disregard two damaging statements made by Knox during her overnight questioning on November 6, 2007. In these statements, Knox claimed to have heard Kercher scream and accused Lumumba of the killing. However, she later questioned the validity of these statements, which she said were made under stress, shock, and extreme exhaustion.
Despite Knox's attempts to retract the accusation, Lumumba was arrested and held in jail for almost two weeks. He was only released after a Swiss university professor provided a receipt proving that Lumumba was at work at the time of the crime.
Knox returned to Italy for only the second time since her release in October 2011 to defend herself against the slander charge. She now lives in the United States with her two children and her husband, and she runs a podcast while campaigning against wrongful convictions.
However, the slander conviction against Knox has continued to fuel doubts about her role in Kercher's murder, particularly in Italy. This is despite the conviction of Rudy Hermann Guede, whose DNA and footprints were found at the crime scene. Guede was convicted of murdering Kercher and sentenced to 30 years in prison, which was later reduced to 16 years.
Kercher's family revealed in 2022 that her parents, John and Arline, had passed away within weeks of each other in 2020. In a tribute to Meredith, her surviving siblings said, "Fifteen years has passed in the blink of an eye but yet we have lived a lifetime in between - something Meredith sadly, was never afforded."
Guede, now 36, was released from prison in 2021 after serving 13 years of his sentence. He was recently ordered to wear a monitoring bracelet and not leave his home at night after an ex-girlfriend accused him of physical and sexual abuse. An investigation into these allegations is ongoing.
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