Italy’s highest courtroom has determined to uphold the conviction of Amanda Knox for slander associated to the 2007 homicide of her British flatmate, Meredith Kercher.
The ruling is the newest a part of a 17-year authorized saga which in the end exonerated her for the deadly stabbing within the Italian college city of Perugia, in central Italy.
Picture:
British trade pupil Meredith Kercher was killed in 2007
British pupil Ms Kercher, 21, was brutally murdered within the residence she shared with Ms Knox, the American who was initially discovered responsible of the killing alongside along with her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
Ms Knox served 4 years in jail earlier than being acquitted in 2011, together with Mr Sollecito. They have been totally exonerated by Italy’s highest courtroom in 2015.
However amongst a fancy collection of authorized twists and turns, in June 2024, an appeals courtroom in Florence handed Ms Knox, 37, athree-year sentence for wrongly accusing a Congolese man of the homicide.
Patrick Lumumba was the proprietor of a bar the place Ms Knox, then a 20-year-old college pupil, had labored part-time.
She averted jail because the sentence counted as time already served in jail.
Please use Chrome browser for a extra accessible video participant
0:53
Amanda Knox on ‘unjust and incorrect verdict’
“I didn’t slander Patrick; I didn’t kill my friend [Meredith]. I have been unjustly accused for 17 years. I spent four years in prison as an innocent,” she mentioned.
She claimed that in her preliminary police questioning, she was “psychologically tortured, abused and mistreated” by officers.
Picture:
Patrick Lumumba (proper) and his lawyer Carlo at courtroom on Thursday. Pic: Reuters
Ms Knox was not on the listening to at Italy’s high courtroom on Thursday, as a substitute following it from the US. Earlier this week she wrote on X that “waiting is the hardest part”.
Patrick Lumumba, who was within the courtroom, mentioned: “I am very satisfied because Amanda made a mistake and this sentence must accompany her for her entire life.”
Ms Knox was ordered to pay the trial’s authorized prices, in addition to these of Mr Lumumba’s lawyer.
Picture:
The previous residence of Meredith Kercher in 2008 within the Umbrian metropolis of Perugia. File pic: Reuters
Amanda Knox is now a mom of two babies who advocates for felony justice reform and campaigns in opposition to wrongful convictions.
One other man, Rudy Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was convicted of sexual assault and homicide after his DNA was discovered on the crime scene.
He was freed in 2021, after serving 13 years of a 16-year time period.
