The latest retrial of Amanda Knox for falsely accusing a Congolese bar owner in the 2007 murder of her British housemate has resulted in a reconviction of slander against her. The slander conviction is the only remaining legal stain against Knox, long after she was definitively exonerated of the murder. Knox traveled to Florence in June to seek the removal of this last legal blemish, only to be convicted again. The Florence appellate court examined Knox’s hand-written memo, the only piece of evidence remaining after Italy’s supreme court threw out two signed statements falsely accusing Patrick Lumumba of the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia.
The Florence appellate court stated that Knox’s hand-written memo was written spontaneously and freely by her, as confirmed during her examination. The court found that the memo contained objective details of the crime of slander. Knox’s document was an attempt to retract the accusations against Lumumba, as she expressed doubts about the verity of her previous statements made under duress. She mentioned that the statements seemed unreal, like a dream, and she was unsure if they were actual events or figments of her mind created to answer the questions she was being asked.
In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to pay damages to Knox for failing to provide her with a lawyer or an independent interpreter during an extended night of questioning, during which she signed the two statements incriminating Lumumba. Knox’s lawyer, Carlo Dalla Vedova, confirmed that Knox plans to appeal the ruling to Italy’s highest court. The lawyer criticized the appellate court’s reasoning, suggesting it aimed to diminish the impact of the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling for which Italy had to compensate Knox. Kercher’s murder, a brutal stabbing, garnered international attention and suspicion initially fell on Knox and her Italian boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito.
The legal proceedings surrounding Kercher’s murder spanned nearly eight years and led to flip-flop verdicts that polarized trial watchers on both sides of the Atlantic. Knox and Sollecito were ultimately fully exonerated by Italy’s highest court in 2015. Rudy Hermann Guede, a man from the Ivory Coast whose DNA was found at the crime scene, has been definitively convicted in Kercher’s murder. Guede was released from prison in 2021 after serving 13 years of a 16-year term. The case continues to attract attention and controversy due to its complex legal proceedings and the involvement of multiple individuals in the crime. Knox’s ongoing legal battles serve as a reminder of the challenges faced by individuals caught in high-profile criminal cases and the long-lasting impact of legal judgments.
