Amanda Knox case: US woman convicted again in Italy for accusing innocent man of murdering roommate

An Italian court on Wednesday again convicted Amanda Knox of defamation for accusing an innocent man of murdering her British roommate in 2007, a killing for which she had herself been jailed but was later acquitted.

The American woman wept in a Florence courtroom as she was sentenced to three years in prison for accusing a Congolese bar owner during police questioning of murdering 21-year-old Meredith Kercher.

“Amanda is very upset by the outcome of this hearing, she wanted to have a final say after 17 years of judicial process,” her lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, said afterwards.

He said he was “very surprised” by the decision and might appeal after examining the detailed judgement, which will be published within 60 days.

Knox was 20 when she and her then-Italian boyfriend were arrested in November 2007 for the brutal murder of classmate Kercher at a girls’ shared house in Perugia.

What followed was a lengthy legal battle in which the two were found guilty, then acquitted, then found guilty again, and finally acquitted in 2015.

But Knox was convicted of defamation in 2011 – for which she was sentenced to three years in prison – after she initially told police Patrick Lumumba was the killer.

Italy’s Supreme Court overturned that verdict on appeal last October and ordered a retrial, which began earlier this year.

Knox appeared in her own defence at the final hearing on Wednesday, where she apologised for naming Lumumba and blamed police pressure for the statement.

Knox, now a 36-year-old mother of two, told judges: “I am very sorry that I was not strong enough to resist the pressure of the police.”

“I was scared, deceived and mistreated. I testified in a moment of existential crisis.”

She said she was “interrogated for hours, in a language I hardly knew, without an official translator or lawyer.”

He said, “I didn’t know who the killer was… they refused to believe me.”

‘The Monster of Perugia’

In November 2007, Kercher’s half-naked body was found soaked in blood inside her roommates’ cottage.

His throat had been slit and he had been stabbed multiple times.

After being implicated by Knox, Lumumba spent nearly two weeks in prison before being released without charges.

Knox said last October that Lumumba “was my friend” at the time of Kercher’s killing.

But Lumumba’s lawyer, Carlo Pacelli, said his accusation changed his life.

“When Amanda accused him, he became known throughout the world as the Monster of Perugia,” he told reporters outside court on Wednesday.

Pacelli later said Knox had been ordered to pay his client’s legal fees and restitution, but the amount had not yet been determined.

Knox was embraced by her husband in court – the same court where he was convicted of murder again in 2014 – as a gaggle of reporters looked on.

Her murder trial attracted global interest, much of it pornographic, focusing on prosecutors’ claim that Kercher’s death was the result of a sex game gone wrong.

‘Big flaws’

But Italy’s supreme court permanently acquitted Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, saying there were “major flaws” in the police investigation.

Knox’s complaints against the police led to a separate charge of defamation of police, from which she was cleared in 2016.

But the American woman – who is now a journalist, author and campaigner for criminal justice reform – took her case to the European Court of Human Rights.

In 2019, it ruled that Knox had not been provided with adequate legal representation or a professional interpreter during her questioning.

Citing that ruling, judges ordered a retrial last October, saying her treatment had “compromised the fairness of the proceedings as a whole.”

During her testimony Wednesday, Knox said police hit her.

“They told me I had seen something so horrible that my mind had simply forgotten it,” he said.

“An officer put handcuffs on my head and said ‘Remember, remember!'”, he said.

“Finally… I was forced to give in. I was too tired and confused to resist.”

One man has been convicted of Kercher’s murder – Ivory Coast resident Rudy Guede, who was linked to the scene through DNA evidence.

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for murder and sexual assault in 2008; his sentence was later reduced to 16 years on appeal.

Guede was released in early November 2021.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)