Legal professionals have accused Amanda Knox of mendacity throughout an indignant outburst as one other slander trial towards the 36-year-old began in Italy right now.
Alongside along with her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, Ms Knox was convicted of the homicide of her 21-year-old British roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia in 2007. Each had been exonerated in 2015.
She has since established herself within the US as an advocate, author, podcaster and producer – with a lot of her work drawing on her expertise within the Italian authorized system.
Legal professionals say the newest trial is the final authorized stain towards Ms Knox. It pertains to a slander conviction the place she wrongly accused a Congolese bar proprietor, Patrick Lumumba, of the homicide throughout an interrogation.
Whereas Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito had been definitively acquitted of homicide by Italy’s highest courtroom – the Cassation Court docket – in 2015, her conviction for slander towards Mr Lumumba was not rescinded.
A 12 months later, the European Court docket of Human Rights (ECHR) dominated that the 2007 interrogation violated her rights as a result of she was questioned with no lawyer or official translator.
In mild of this, the Cassation Court docket overturned the slander conviction final 12 months and ordered a retrial.
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From 2016: Amanda Knox acquitted of homicide
In the course of the opening of Wednesday’s retrial in Florence, Carlo Pacelli, Mr Lumumba’s lawyer, shouted “Amanda is a liar” to Ms Knox’s legal professionals.
He was then interrupted by the president of the courtroom, with Ms Knox’s legal professionals replying: “We can not restart the homicide trial once more, we’re right here for a defamation case.”
The brand new trial will give attention to only one piece of proof: her four-page handwritten assertion that the courtroom will look at to see if it accommodates components to help slander towards Mr Lumumba.
He was held in jail for 2 weeks earlier than police launched him and he has since left Italy.
Diya “Patrick” Lumumba was held in jail for 2 weeks earlier than he was launched. File pic: AP
Knox was ‘gaslit’
Two different statements typed up by police that Ms Knox signed within the early hours of seven November, 2007 – almost per week after Ms Kercher’s homicide – that contained the accusation, and had been thought of probably the most incriminating, have been dominated inadmissible.
The four-page letter, which she wrote within the 53-hour span of questioning over 4 days beginning 6 November, displays a state of confusion.
“With reference to this ‘confession’ that I made final night time, I need to clarify that I am very uncertain of the verity [sic] of my statements as a result of they had been made beneath the pressures of stress, shock and excessive exhaustion,” Ms Knox wrote.
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From 2019: Knox breaks down in tears on her return to Italy
Talking concerning the newest trial on her podcast ‘Labyrinths’ in December, Ms Knox mentioned: “On the one hand, I’m glad I’ve this opportunity to clear my title, and hopefully that can take away the stigma that I’ve been residing with.
“Then again, I do not know if it ever will, in the best way I’m nonetheless traumatised by it.
“I’m certain individuals will nonetheless maintain it towards me as a result of they do not need to perceive what occurred, and so they do not need to settle for that an harmless particular person could be gaslit and coerced into what I went by means of.”
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Mr Lumumba’s lawyer shouted “Amanda is a liar” to Ms Knox’s legal professionals in courtroom. File pic: AP
‘This trial by no means ends’
Ms Knox added on the podcast that she anticipated to testify, however she was not in courtroom for the opening day of the trial. Sky Information understands she is in Seattle after giving delivery to her second little one in September.
Her lawyer informed Sky Information he’ll ask the decide “for a complete acquittal in an effort to restore the required fact for a younger girl who has unjustly suffered a lot”.
The Kercher household lawyer, Francesco Maresca, mentioned that Ms Knox’s exoneration did little in his thoughts to dispel doubts following the American’s conviction by a trial courtroom and two appeals courts, the primary confirming her sentence of 26 years and the second elevating it to 28-and-a-half years.
“This trial by no means ends,” Mr Maresca mentioned, including that it obscures “the reminiscence of poor Meredith, who’s at all times remembered for these procedural points and never as a scholar and younger girl”.
Rudy Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was convicted in 2008 of the sexual assault and homicide of Ms Kercher.
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His DNA was discovered on the scene however the verdict towards the 31-year-old maintains that he didn’t act alone.
Guede was launched from jail in 2021 after serving 13 years of a 16-year time period.
He was lately ordered to put on a monitoring bracelet and never go away his house at night time after an ex-girlfriend accused him of bodily and sexual abuse. An investigation is ongoing.
Former Perugia public prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, who led the investigation into Ms Kercher’s homicide, informed Sky Information that “there should be a wrongdoer who took half within the homicide and who has not been found but”.
