FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — Amanda Knox was once again on trial for slander Wednesday for wrongly accusing a Congolese guy of murdering her roommate whilst the younger girls have been alternate scholars in Italy. Knox herself was once convicted of the slaying sooner than being exonerated in a case that grabbed the worldwide highlight.Knox was once a 20-year-old pupil with rudimentary Italian who had not too long ago arrived in Perugia, when she persisted a protracted night time of wondering within the homicide of Meredith Kercher. She ended up accusing the landlord of a bar the place she labored part-time of killing the 21-year-old British pupil.In 2016, the Eu Courtroom of Human Rights dominated that the interrogation violated her rights as a result of she was once puzzled with no legal professional or legitimate translator. In November, Italy’s best possible Cassation Courtroom threw out the slander conviction — the one closing accountable verdict in opposition to Knox after the similar courtroom definitively threw out convictions for Kercher’s homicide in opposition to Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 9 years in the past.
That conviction has remained a prison stain in opposition to her, particularly in Italy, as she pursues a brand new existence in the USA campaigning for judicial reform.
Every other guy was once convicted in Kercher’s 2007 homicide.Knox, now 36, was once no longer anticipated at Wednesday’s listening to in Florence, and judges declared she can be attempted in absentia. She stays in the USA, the place she has quite a few media initiatives together with a podcast and a restricted collection on her case in construction with Hulu.
Knox’s accusation in opposition to bar proprietor Patrick Lumumba gave the impression in statements typed by way of police that she signed, however which were dominated inadmissible on this new trial.She recanted the accusation in a four-page handwritten be aware in English penned the next afternoon — the one proof the courtroom can rule on, her legal professional stated.In spite of Knox’s makes an attempt at strolling again the accusation, Lumumba was once picked up for wondering and held for just about two weeks. Lumumba, who has since left Italy, is becoming a member of the prosecution as a civil player, as allowed by way of Italian regulation.
The slander conviction carried a three-year sentence, which Knox served right through just about 4 years of detention till a Perugia appeals courtroom discovered her and Sollecito no longer accountable. After six years of flip-flop verdicts, Knox was once definitively exonerated by way of Italy’s best possible courtroom of the homicide in 2015.Kercher’s frame was once discovered with the throat slit on Nov. 2, 2007, in her locked bed room in an condominium she shared with Knox and two different roommates.Rudy Guede, whose DNA and footprints have been discovered on the scene, was once convicted of the homicide and sentenced to 16 years in jail. He was once launched after serving 13 years, and is lately being investigated for allegedly bodily and sexually assaulting a former female friend since being freed.___This tale has been corrected to turn that the homicide conviction in opposition to Knox was once definitively thrown out 9 years in the past, no longer 8.
