FLORENCE, Italy — In a recent development, an Italian court has pronounced American citizen Amanda Knox guilty of slander on Wednesday. The court has sentenced her to a three-year imprisonment in a case that is linked to the 2007 murder of her British roommate.
However, this sentence will not have any real-world implications as the time Knox has already spent in jail covers it. Knox was previously convicted for the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, but her conviction was overturned in 2015.
Knox, who was present in court during the verdict, had previously been sentenced to three years for falsely implicating Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner, in Kercher’s murder. Knox had already served four years in prison for Kercher’s murder.
“Amanda is feeling extremely bitter,” her attorney Luca Luparia Donati stated in a preliminary response, adding that she intends to appeal the verdict.
Now 36 years old, Knox had earlier accused the Italian police of threats and violence as she strived to clear her name in the last remaining case against her.
“The police threatened me with 30 years in prison, an officer slapped me three times saying ‘Remember, remember’,” she narrated to the court on Wednesday, alleging that the police wanted her to pin the blame on Lumumba.
“I deeply regret that I wasn’t strong enough to resist the pressure from the police,” she confessed, speaking in Italian.
The murder of 21-year-old Kercher and the subsequent trials became a sensation for tabloids on both sides of the Atlantic, inspiring numerous books and films.
In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights found that there were procedural errors during Knox’s interrogation. Consequently, Italy’s highest court ordered another trial in the slander case last year.
Lumumba was detained for two weeks in 2007 before he was released.
“When Patrick was accused by Amanda, he was globally recognized as the monster of Perugia,” Lumumba’s attorney Carlo Pacelli told the press on Wednesday, advocating that the conviction should be maintained. Lumumba was not present in court.
Rudy Guede, originally from the Ivory Coast, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for Kercher’s murder, with the ruling stating that he acted with unnamed accomplices. He was granted early release in 2021.
I disagree with the court’s decision. #innocent until proven guilty.
Disagree with the court’s ruling. #wrongdecision
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