OAN’s Abril Elfi
11:42 AM – Wednesday, June 5, 2024
Amanda Knox was found guilty again of defamation by an Italian court after she named an innocent man as the murderer of her British roommate.
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On Wednesday, the Florence court sentenced Knox to three years in prison for falsely accusing Patrick Lumumba, a Conglose bar owner, of the murder of her previous roommate, Meredith Kercher.
However, Knox is “not expected to serve the time” as she has already served around four years before her murder conviction was later overturned.
Italy overturned Knox’s slander conviction after the European Court of Human Rights declared in 2019 that Italian law enforcement had violated her rights during questioning. In order to determine whether Knox committed libel in the note, the nation’s Supreme Court then requested that the Florence Court hold a new trial.
Knox arrived to court with her husband, Christopher Robinson, in Florence, Italy, on Wednesday morning, as her hearing was scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m.
She addressed the court in a statement that lasted roughly 10 minutes. She spoke in Italian, stating why she had written Lumumba’s name in her statement.
She said that Lumumba was “not only her employer,” but also a friend who had comforted her following the death of her roommate, and that she had no intention of hurting him. She said that after a protracted police interrogation, she was tired and disoriented when she named him.
“I am very sorry that I was not strong enough to resist the pressure of the police,” Knox told the panel. “I didn’t know who the murderer was. I had no way to know.”
Knox continued, saying that the hearing had been scheduled for the “very same courtroom where I was re-convicted of a crime I didn’t commit” and that this time she would be there to “defend myself yet again.”
She also later posted on social media, saying, “I hope to clear my name once and for all of the false charges against me. Wish me luck.”
In 2009, Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were found guilty of murder.
However, the verdict was overturned two years later in 2011. Nevertheless, in 2014, she was found guilty of murder once more.
Then, in 2015, the nation’s top court unequivocally cleared her and Sollecito of all charges related to the killing.
Rudy Hermann Guede, Kercher’s ex boyfriend, served 13 years in prison for the murder and was released in 2021. However, he “was [also] issued a restraining order by an Italian judge in 2023 for allegedly abusing his 23-year-old ex-girlfriend,” La Stampa reported.
According to CNN, the prosecution previously believed that Kercher’s throat was cut when she declined to take part in a drug-fueled sex orgy with Guede, Sollecito, and Knox.
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