Amanda Knox Back In Italian Court For Slander Retrial Linked To Roommate's Murder

Amanda Knox returned to court in Italy Wednesday for a slander case related to her infamous jailing, and later acquittal, for the murder of her British roommate in 2007.

The American was only 20 when she and her Italian then-boyfriend were arrested for the brutal killing of 21-year-old fellow student Meredith Kercher at the girls' shared home in Perugia.

The murder began a long legal saga where Knox was found guilty, acquitted, found guilty again and finally cleared of all charges in 2015.

But she still had a related conviction for slander, for blaming the murder on a local bar owner during initial questioning by police.

In October, Italy's highest court threw out that conviction on appeal and ordered a retrial, which began earlier this year in Florence in Knox's absence.

But she decided to fly in for a hearing on Wednesday, at which she was set to speak in her defence -- and after which lawyers expect a verdict.

"I hope to clear my name once and for all of the false charges against me. Wish me luck!," Knox wrote on X earlier this week.

Both parties will be able to appeal the verdict. 

Knox arrived in court -- the same one where she was reconvicted of murder in 2014 -- holding hands with her husband, met by scrum of reporters and camera crew.

Her murder trial attracted global interest, much of it salacious, focusing on prosecutors' claims that Kercher died as part of a sex game gone wrong.

But Italy's highest court, when it acquitted Knox and former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito once and for all, said there had been "major flaws" in the police investigation.

One person remains convicted of Kercher's murder -- Ivorian Rudy Guede, who was linked to the scene by DNA evidence.

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

Guede was released early in November 2021.

'Monster of Perugia'

Kercher's half-naked body was found in a pool of blood inside the roommates' cottage in November 2007. Her throat had been slit and she had suffered multiple stab wounds.

During police questioning, Knox implicated Congolese bar owner Patrick Lumumba, who then spent almost two weeks behind bars before being released without charge.

Knox was convicted of slandering him in 2011 and sentenced to three years already served.

But she said she was yelled at and slapped during the police investigation -- claims that prompted a separate charge of slandering police, of which she was cleared in 2016. 

She petitioned the European Court of Human Rights, which in 2019 ruled that Knox had not been provided with adequate legal representation or a professional interpreter during her interrogation.

That ruling -- which found her treatment "compromised the fairness of the proceedings as a whole" -- was cited by Italy's top court last year when it ordered the retrial.

Knox said last October that at the time of Kercher's murder, Lumumba "was my friend".

"We are both victims of the violation of my human rights during my interrogation, without which I was helpless against the coercive pressure of the police," she wrote on X.

But Lumumba's lawyer, Carlo Pacelli, described how Knox's accusation changed his life.

"When he was accused by Amanda he became universally considered the monster of Perugia," he told reporters outside court.

"He lost his job, had his bar seized for months, and had to return to Poland, because his wife was Polish."

Lumumba is not attending the hearing.

Now 36 and with two young children, Knox is a journalist, author and campaigner for criminal justice reform.

She returned to Italy five years ago to address a conference on wrongful convictions, appearing on a panel entitled "Trial By Media".

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