Current:Home > MarketsItaly opens new slander trial against Amanda Knox. She was exonerated 9 years ago in friend’s murder-InfoLens
Italy opens new slander trial against Amanda Knox. She was exonerated 9 years ago in friend’s murder
View Date:2024-12-23 10:14:21
FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — Amanda Knox was back on trial for slander Wednesday for wrongly accusing a Congolese man of murdering her roommate while the young women were exchange students in Italy. Knox herself was convicted of the slaying before being exonerated in a case that grabbed the global spotlight.
Knox was a 20-year-old student with rudimentary Italian who had recently arrived in Perugia, when she endured a long night of questioning in the murder of Meredith Kercher. She ended up accusing the owner of a bar where she worked part-time of killing the 21-year-old British student.
In 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the interrogation violated her rights because she was questioned without a lawyer or official translator. In November, Italy’s highest Cassation Court threw out the slander conviction — the only remaining guilty verdict against Knox after the same court definitively threw out convictions for Kercher’s murder against Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, nine years ago.
That conviction has remained a legal stain against her, especially in Italy, as she pursues a new life in the United States campaigning for judicial reform.
Another man was convicted in Kercher’s 2007 murder.
Knox, now 36, was not expected at Wednesday’s hearing in Florence, and judges declared she would be tried in absentia. She remains in the United States, where she has a variety of media projects including a podcast and a limited series on her case in development with Hulu.
Knox’s accusation against bar owner Patrick Lumumba appeared in statements typed by police that she signed, but which have been ruled inadmissible in this new trial.
She recanted the accusation in a four-page handwritten note in English penned the following afternoon — the only evidence the court can rule on, her lawyer said.
Despite Knox’s attempts at walking back the accusation, Lumumba was picked up for questioning and held for nearly two weeks. Lumumba, who has since left Italy, is joining the prosecution as a civil participant, as allowed by Italian law.
The slander conviction carried a three-year sentence, which Knox served during nearly four years of detention until a Perugia appeals court found her and Sollecito not guilty. After six years of flip-flop verdicts, Knox was definitively exonerated by Italy’s highest court of the murder in 2015.
Kercher’s body was found with the throat slit on Nov. 2, 2007, in her locked bedroom in an apartment she shared with Knox and two other roommates.
Rudy Guede, whose DNA and footprints were found at the scene, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He was released after serving 13 years, and is currently being investigated for allegedly physically and sexually assaulting a former girlfriend since being freed.
___
This story has been corrected to show that the murder conviction against Knox was definitively thrown out nine years ago, not eight.
veryGood! (6)
Related
- Will Aaron Rodgers retire? Jets QB tells reporters he plans to play in 2025
- Tax return extensions: Why you should (or shouldn't) do it and how to request one
- Riley Strain Case: Family Orders Second Autopsy After Discovery
- Video shows 'Cop City' activists chain themselves to top of 250-foot crane at Atlanta site
- Taylor Swift Becomes Auntie Tay In Sweet Photo With Fellow Chiefs WAG Chariah Gordon's Daughter
- Horoscopes Today, March 27, 2024
- 2024 NFL mock draft: Four QBs go in top four picks thanks to projected trade
- After 'Quiet on Set,' Steve from 'Blue's Clues' checked on Nickelodeon fans. They're not OK.
- Will Reeve, son of Christopher Reeve, gets engaged to girlfriend Amanda Dubin
- A look at where Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and others are headed when season ends
Ranking
- Love Is Blind’s Chelsea Blackwell Reacts to Megan Fox’s Baby News
- For-profit school accused of preying on Black students reaches $28.5 million settlement
- Harmony Montgomery case spurs bill to require defendants’ appearance in court
- The 50 Most Popular Amazon Items E! Readers Bought This Month: Viral Beauty, Kyle Richards' Picks & More
- Caitlin Clark has one goal for her LPGA pro-am debut: Don't hit anyone with a golf ball
- 'We will never forget': South Carolina Mother, 3-year-old twin girls killed in collision
- Potential Changes to Alternate-Fuel Standards Could Hike Gas Prices in California. Critics See a ‘Regressive Tax’ on Low-Income Communities
- Home Depot buying supplier to professional contractors in a deal valued at about $18.25B
Recommendation
-
Cleveland Browns’ Hakeem Adeniji Shares Stillbirth of Baby Boy Days Before Due Date
-
‘My dad, he needed help': Woman says her dead father deserved more from Nevada police
-
Truth Social’s stock price is soaring. It’s not just Trump supporters buying in.
-
In 'Godzilla x Kong,' monsters team up while the giant ape gets a sidekick
-
World leaders aim to shape Earth's future at COP29 climate change summit
-
Score 60% off Lounge Underwear and Bras, $234 Worth of Clinique Makeup for $52, and More Deals
-
Video shows 'Cop City' activists chain themselves to top of 250-foot crane at Atlanta site
-
Under threat of a splintering base, Obama and Clinton bring star power to rally Dems for Biden