Legal professionals have accused Amanda Knox of mendacity throughout an indignant outburst as one other slander trial in opposition to the 36-year-old began in Italy at the moment.
Alongside together with her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, Ms Knox was convicted of the homicide of her 21-year-old British roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia in 2007. Each have been exonerated in 2015.
She has since established herself within the US as an advocate, author, podcaster and producer – with a lot of her work drawing on her expertise within the Italian authorized system.
Legal professionals say the most recent trial is the final authorized stain in opposition to Ms Knox.
It pertains to Ms Knox’s slander conviction for wrongly accusing a Congolese bar proprietor, Patrick Lulumba, of the homicide, which was confirmed by Italy’s highest court docket – the Cassation Court docket – in 2015.
In 2016, the European Court docket of Human Rights (ECHR) dominated that the 2007 interrogation violated her rights as a result of she was questioned with out a lawyer or official translator.
In gentle of this, the Cassation Court docket overturned the slander conviction final yr and ordered a retrial.
Through the opening of the most recent trial in Florence, Carlo Pacelli, Patrick Lumumba’s lawyer, shouted “Amanda is a liar” to Ms Knox’s legal professionals.
He was then interrupted by the president of the court docket, with Ms Knox’s legal professionals replying: “We can’t restart the homicide trial once more, we’re right here for a defamation case.”
The brand new trial will admit only one piece of proof: her four-page handwritten assertion that the court docket will study to see if it comprises components to help slander in opposition to Mr Lumumba.
He was held in jail for 2 weeks earlier than police launched him and he has since left Italy.
Two different statements typed up by police that Ms Knox signed within the early hours of seven November, 2007 – practically per week after Ms Kercher’s homicide – that contained the accusation, and have been thought of essentially the most incriminating, have been dominated inadmissible.
The four-page letter, which she wrote within the 53-hour span of questioning over 4 days beginning 6 November, displays a state of confusion.
“With reference to this ‘confession’ that I made final night time, I need to clarify that I am very uncertain of the verity [sic] of my statements as a result of they have been made beneath the pressures of stress, shock and excessive exhaustion,” Ms Knox wrote.
Talking concerning the newest trial on her podcast Labyrinths in December, Ms Knox stated: “On the one hand, I’m glad I’ve this opportunity to clear my title, and hopefully that may take away the stigma that I’ve been dwelling with.
“Then again, I do not know if it ever will, in the best way I’m nonetheless traumatised by it.
“I’m certain folks will nonetheless maintain it in opposition to me as a result of they do not need to perceive what occurred, they usually do not need to settle for that an harmless particular person will be gaslit and coerced into what I went by.”
Ms Knox stated on the podcast that she anticipated to testify, however she was not in court docket for the opening day of the trial. Sky Information understands she is in Seattle after giving delivery to her second baby in September.
Her lawyer advised Sky Information he’ll ask the choose “for a complete acquittal to be able to restore the required fact for a younger girl who has unjustly suffered a lot”.
The Kercher household lawyer, Francesco Maresca, stated that Ms Knox’s exoneration did little in his thoughts to dispel doubts following the American’s conviction by a trial court docket and two appeals courts, the primary confirming her sentence of 26 years and the second elevating it to 28-and-a-half years.
“This trial by no means ends,” Mr Maresca stated, including that it obscures “the reminiscence of poor Meredith, who’s all the time remembered for these procedural facets and never as a pupil and younger girl”.
Rudy Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was convicted in 2008 of the sexual assault and homicide of Ms Kercher.
His DNA was discovered on the scene however the verdict in opposition to the 31-year-old maintains that he didn’t act alone.
Guede was launched from jail in 2021 after serving 13 years of a 16-year time period.
He was just lately ordered to put on a monitoring bracelet and never go away his dwelling at night time after an ex-girlfriend accused him of bodily and sexual abuse. An investigation is ongoing.
Former Perugia public prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, who led the investigation into Ms Kercher’s homicide, advised Sky Information that “there should still be a wrongdoer who took half within the homicide and who has not been found but”.
