“Re-convicted of defamation in Italy due to charges related to the murder of her roommate”
Florence, Italy — Even after Amanda Knox was found not guilty of the horrific 2007 murder of her British roommate when they were both exchange students in Italy, an Italian court convicted her of slander once more on Wednesday.
The Congolese bar owner, with whom Knox had a part-time job, was falsely accused of the killing, the court decided. However, since the three-year sentence counts as time already served, she won’t have to spend any more time behind bars.
Knox was emotionless during the reading of the verdict.
In a quiet and occasionally heartbreaking voice, Knox requested earlier on Wednesday that eight Italian jurors and judges absolve her of a defamation charge that persisted even after she was found not guilty of the gruesome 2007 murder of her British roommate when the two were studying abroad in Italy.
Knox testified in court that during severe police pressure during an overnight interrogation without the assistance of a qualified interpreter or attorney, she mistakenly accused an innocent guy, the Congolese proprietor of the bar where she worked part-time, of the murder.
Knox, seated next to the panel on the jury bench, made a prepared nine-minute speech to the panel that began, “I am very sorry that I was not strong enough to resist the pressure of police.” “I didn’t know who the murderer was,” she said to them. I was unable to find out.”
The murder of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher in the picturesque hilltop town of Perugia made headlines throughout the world as suspicion fell on Knox, a 20-year-old Seattle exchange student, and Raffaele Sollecito, her new Italian lover who had only been dating for a week.
During the nearly eight years of court procedures, flip-flop rulings sharply divided trial viewers on both sides of the Atlantic, and the case, still in its early stages, was hotly debated on social media.
Photographers swarmed Knox, her husband Christopher Robinson, and their legal team as they entered the courthouse around one hour prior to the hearing, demonstrating the continued high level of media interest in the case. Luca Luparia Donati, her attorney, claimed that she was struck in the left temple by a camera. Seated in the front row of the court, Knox’s husband examined a little bump on her head.
There are still questions regarding Knox’s involvement, especially in Italy, despite her exoneration and the conviction of an Ivorian man whose footprints and DNA were discovered at the scene. This is mostly because of the charge she brought against Patrick Lumumba, which resulted in the conviction for defamation.
Only twice since her release from four years in prison in October 2011, when a Perugia appeals court reversed the initial guilty decision in the murder case against both Knox and Sollecito, has the 36-year-old mother of two small children returned to Italy.
She continued to live in the United States despite two more contradictory rulings until March 2015, when Italy’s top court unequivocally declared that the two were not the murderers.
“I will walk into the very same courtroom where I was reconvicted of a crime I didn’t commit, this time to defend myself yet again,” Knox said to social media. “I want to dispel all of the unfounded accusations that have been made against me. I hope for the best.”
A European court decision that Italy had denied Knox the right to both legal representation and a qualified interpreter during a long night of interrogation days after Kercher’s death determined the date of Knox’s appearance in court. After five trials, the slander conviction was overturned by Italy’s highest Cassation Court in the fall and a new trial was ordered. This was made possible by a 2022 Italian legal change that permits cases that have reached a final verdict to be reopened if human rights abuses are discovered.
This time, when Knox was being kept for questioning overnight into the early hours of November 6, 2007, the court has been directed to ignore two damning statements typed by police and signed by her at 1:45 and 5:45 in the morning. Knox said in the statements that she had heard Kercher cry and that Lumumba was responsible for the murder.
After a few hours, at approximately 1 p.m., while she was still being held, she requested a pen and paper so that she could write her own English statement, challenging the one she had signed.