5 months ago
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Amanda Knox faces slander trial in Italy
Florence, Italy — Amanda Knox, the American student who spent nearly four years in an Italian prison after being convicted in 2007 of murdering her college roommate Meredith Kercher, will be back in an Italian court this week in an effort to clear the last legal stain on her name.
"I will walk into the very same courtroom where I was reconvicted of a crime I didn't commit, this time to defend myself yet again," Knox said in a social media post on Monday. "I hope to clear my name once and for all of the false charges against me. Wish me luck."
Kercher, a British student, was found dead in her bedroom in the apartment she shared with Knox in the Italian city of Perugia. She had been sexually assaulted and had multiple stab wounds. Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted of murdering her in a sex game gone awry.
This combination of three file photos shows: from left, Italian student Raffaele Sollecito, slain British woman Meredith Kercher and her American roommate Amanda Knox.
AP
In 2015, after seven years of legal battles and flip-flop verdicts, Knox and Sollecito were cleared of the murder. However, a slander conviction against Knox, for falsely accusing a Congolese bar owner she worked for of being Kercher's killer. She made that accusation during a grueling 53-hour police interrogation.
Very soon after implicating the bar owner, however, Knox wrote a four-page statement in English casting serious doubt on the testimony she had given to the police.
"I want to make clear that I'm very doubtful of the veritity [sic] of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion. Not only was I told I would be arrested and put in jail for 30 years, but I was also hit in the head when I didn't remember a fact correctly," she wrote in the statement.
Knox's defense team has always maintained that the accusation against the bar owner was coerced.
Amanda Knox arrives at Milan's Linate airport in Italy, in a June 13, 2019 file photo, for a visit to speak at the Criminal Justice Festival.
REUTERS
In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Italy had violated Knox's human nights during police questioning. Knox said she was interrogated without a lawyer or a proper translator and that she was also beaten by the police.
Italy's highest court ordered a retrial, and a verdict is expected Wednesday from the court in Florence where the trial is taking place.
Prosecutors have asked the court to confirm the slander conviction and impose a penalty of three years. Knox already spent almost four years behind bars, starting in 2007, so even if the conviction is upheld this week, she would not be required to spend any more time in jail.
Another man, Rudy Guede — whose footprints and DNA were found all over the crime scene — was convicted of murdering Kercher in 2008 and served 13 years in prison before being released in 2021.
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