{"id":66002,"date":"2024-06-05T05:59:11","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T05:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/05\/amanda-knox-to-face-italian-court-for-slander-retrial-over-2007-killing\/"},"modified":"2024-06-05T05:59:11","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T05:59:11","slug":"amanda-knox-to-face-italian-court-for-slander-retrial-over-2007-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/05\/amanda-knox-to-face-italian-court-for-slander-retrial-over-2007-killing\/","title":{"rendered":"Amanda Knox to Face Italian Court for Slander Retrial Over 2007 Killing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"549\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/05\/world\/05italy-knoxHFO\/05italy-knoxHFO-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,549&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Amanda Knox to Face Italian Court for Slander Retrial Over 2007 Killing\" title=\"Amanda Knox to Face Italian Court for Slander Retrial Over 2007 Killing\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\"><a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/10\/22\/style\/amanda-knox-ten-years-later.html\" title=\"\">Amanda Knox<\/a>, the American who was convicted and then exonerated of murdering her housemate while they were studying in Italy, is expected on Wednesday to appear again in an Italian court \u2014 this time to defend herself against slander charges related to the 2007 killing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It is the latest twist in a dramatic legal journey whose echoes continue to reverberate nearly 17 years after the murder of the housemate, Meredith Kercher, a British student, elicited headlines around the world and turned Ms. Knox into a tabloid staple.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Knox is being tried again on charges that she slandered the owner of a bar where she worked by accusing him of killing Ms. Kercher, who was stabbed. She was convicted of the slander charge in 2009 and it was upheld by various Italian courts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But a European court ruling and a change in Italian law allowed a new appeal by Ms. Knox, and Italy\u2019s highest court in October ordered a retrial, which began in April in an appellate court in Florence. A verdict is expected on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For Ms. Knox, an acquittal would mark the end of a long ordeal. Writing on the social media platform X on Monday, Ms. Knox <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/amandaknox\/status\/1797574380060377190\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> she would appear in the court and hoped to \u201cclear my name once and for all of the false charges against me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Knox became a household name in 2007 when the then 20-year old American was arrested with Raffaele Sollecito, 23, her boyfriend, for the murder of her 21-year-old housemate, Ms. Kercher, during what prosecutors described as a sex game gone wrong. All three were studying in the picturesque central Italian city of Perugia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Knox was convicted in 2009 of the killing by an Italian court but acquitted on appeal. She returned to the United States in 2011 while her case bounced between various courts until she and Mr. Sollecito <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/09\/08\/world\/europe\/italys-highest-court-explains-decision-to-clear-amanda-knox.html\" title=\"\">were exonerated<\/a> by Italy\u2019s highest court in 2015.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The conviction for slander against the bar owner, Diya Lumumba, also known as Patrick, was upheld throughout her various trials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Since returning to the United States, Ms. Knox, now 36 and the mother of two small children, has become an advocate for people incarcercerated for crimes they did not commit and a campaigner for criminal justice reform.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Rudy Guede, a Perugia resident with a police history of break-ins, was tried separately and convicted in the murder case. He served 13 years of a 16-year-sentence and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/11\/23\/world\/europe\/rudy-guede-free-killer-meredith-kercher.html\" title=\"\">was released in 2021<\/a>, recently making headlines after a former girlfriend accused him of physically abusing her. His lawyer said this week that the case involving the former girlfriend was still being investigated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lumumba, who at the time ran Le Chic, a bar where Ms. Knox worked part time, became collateral damage in the case after Ms. Knox identified him as Ms. Kercher\u2019s killer during an all-night interrogation a few days after the murder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Knox recanted within hours of signing two statements accusing him, and those statements were later ruled inadmissible in court. But Mr. Lumumba was arrested, held in prison for two weeks and released only after one of his clients provided an airtight alibi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Lumumba sued for slander, and Ms. Knox was found guilty and sentenced to three years, which she served during her four years in prison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a December 2023 episode of \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/79-still-on-trial-in-italy\/id1494368441?i=1000638980892\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Labyrinths<\/a>,\u201d the podcast she hosts with her husband, Christopher Robinson, Ms. Knox said the slander conviction still disturbed her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For some, she said, it was \u201cproof that I am a liar and I am an unsavory person and that I have something to hide and I\u2019ve never told the full truth about what happened to Meredith and only somebody who was involved in the crime would ever even make statements that implicated themselves and others.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Knox \u2014 who had arrived in Perugia just two months before the murder \u2014 has maintained that she was coerced into accusing Mr. Lumumba during a nightlong interrogation in which she had no legal representation. During the interrogation, Ms. Knox said she was slapped on the back of the head by the police.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There are no recordings of the interrogations that night, and Italian police officers had sued Ms. Knox for slander for her depiction of the interrogation. She was tried and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-italy-knox-slander-acquittal\/amanda-knox-acquitted-of-slander-charges-against-italian-police-idUSKCN0US2PU20160114\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">acquitted in 2016.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In 2019, Europe\u2019s top human rights court ruled that Ms. Knox had been <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/01\/24\/world\/europe\/italy-amanda-knox.html\" title=\"\">deprived of adequate legal assistance<\/a> while being interrogated, violating her right to a fair trial, and ordered Italy to pay her 18,400 euros, or about $21,000 at the time, in damages, costs and expenses. The court also raised questions about the role of Ms. Knox\u2019s interpreter, and said that Ms. Knox\u2019s statements during the interrogation \u201chad been taken in an atmosphere of intense psychological pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At the April hearing related to the slander case, the Italian prosecutor and Carlo Pacelli, Mr. Lumumba\u2019s lawyer, argued that Ms. Knox had knowingly accused the bar owner to deflect attention from herself and derail the investigation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Jurors at the hearing Wednesday will be asked to consider the four-page statement she wrote to recant the two signed statements she made accusing Mr. Lumumba, \u201cas well as the context and the evidence on record,\u201d Mr. Pacelli said in a telephone interview. Even though she knew his client was innocent, Ms. Knox never relayed that fact to investigators, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the handwritten statement, she writes of her confusion: \u201cI want to make clear that I\u2019m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Knox had been ordered to pay damages to Mr. Lumumba, but Mr. Pacelli said she had never given any money to his client. Because of the accusation, Mr. Lumumba lost his business and he left Italy with his family. He now lives in Krakow, Poland, and did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis is a trial that every now and then offers some very surprising twists and turns,\u201d Mr. Pacelli said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/05\/world\/europe\/amanda-knox-italy-slander-case.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amanda Knox, the American who was convicted and then exonerated of murdering her housemate while they were studying in Italy, is expected on Wednesday to appear again in an Italian court \u2014 this time to defend herself against slander charges related to the 2007 killing. It is the latest twist in a dramatic legal journey [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/06\/05\/world\/05italy-knoxHFO\/05italy-knoxHFO-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[28509,1625,2086,3832,4373,28510,62510,28511],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66002"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66002"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66004,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66002\/revisions\/66004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}