ROME (AP) – Amanda Knox is set to address the final remnants of her legal troubles as Italy's highest court hears her appeal regarding a slander conviction. This conviction stems from Knox falsely accusing Patrick Lumbumba, a Congolese bar owner, in the 2007 murder of her British flatmate, Meredith Kercher.
Patrick Lumumba, the man Knox accused, expressed outside Italy’s Cassation Court that he hopes the conviction remains intact, stating it should "stay with her for the rest of her life." This case marks the culmination of a tumultuous 17-year legal journey involving Knox and her former boyfriend, Rafaelle Sollecito, who were both convicted and acquitted at various trials related to Kercher's murder, before their eventual exoneration by Italy's highest court in 2015.
The slander conviction against Knox persists as her last legal impediment. Following multiple appeals, she was reconvicted in June, a decision prompted by a ruling from a European court that deemed her human rights had been violated, paving the way for a retrial. Knox, who is currently monitoring the verdict from home, remains "confident and respectful of the justice system," according to her defense attorney Carlo Dalla Vedova. She indicated a belief that this chapter will conclusively close today.
In her recent podcast "Labyrinths," Knox articulated her frustration with the lingering consequences of a wrongful conviction. "I hate the fact that I have to live consequences for a crime I did not commit," she stated. Her defense team contends that Knox implicated Lumbumba under duress during an intense police interrogation, where officers supposedly fed her false information. The European Court of Human Rights criticized the Italian authorities for denying her a lawyer and providing a translator who did not adequately represent her interests.
Knox shared her struggles with fear of a negative verdict, describing it as living under a "scarlet letter." Despite the possibility of the high court confirming her conviction and the accompanying three-year sentence, Knox is not at risk of further imprisonment, having already spent nearly four years in custody during the investigation and initial trials. Her primary focus is on clearing her name completely.
She reflected on the emotional toll of a false conviction, stating, "Living with a false conviction is horrific, personally, psychologically, emotionally. I’m fighting it, and we’ll see what happens." Since her return to the United States in 2011 after being exonerated, Knox has become an activist for the wrongfully convicted, collaborating on a podcast with her husband and preparing to release a memoir titled "Free: My Search for Meaning."
Knox returned to Italy for the verdict in the slander trial, and her attorney noted that she was "very embittered" by the previous conviction. Knox was just 20 years old when Kercher was murdered on November 2, 2007, in their shared apartment in Perugia. The case drew significant media attention, leading to swift accusations against Knox and Sollecito, who faced years of trials, ultimately culminating in their 2015 exoneration.
Rudy Hermann Guede, a man from the Ivory Coast, was convicted of the murder after his DNA was found at the crime scene. He served a 16-year sentence and was released in 2021. Following judgments against Italy regarding police misconduct, the European court ordered the country to compensate Knox and highlighted her vulnerability as a foreign exchange student without fluency in Italian.
The newly mandated slander trial was initiated based on this previous ruling, which dismissed two written police statements that wrongfully implicated Lumumba. The appellate court ultimately ruled that a handwritten letter Knox drafted to retract her accusation could still substantiate a slander verdict. Although Lumumba had a strong alibi, he suffered greatly from the accusation, resulting in a decline of his business and his eventual relocation to Poland.
Outside the courthouse, Lumumba remarked that Knox had never offered an apology. The outcome of Knox's appeal remains uncertain as the legal saga continues to unfold.
