Amanda Knox’s attempt to “clear my name once and for all” in connection to the headline-gripping 2007 murder of her roommate in Italy concluded Wednesday with a re-conviction for slander as an Italian court found Knox wrongly accused an innocent man for the killing.
Making her first appearance in an Italian court since 2011 — the same year she was released after spending four years in prison following her wrongful conviction in the murder of fellow exchange student Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy — Knox once again faced the charge related to her falsely accusing Kercher’s murder on Patrick Lumumba, the owner of a bar where Knox worked while in Italy.
Following Kercher’s murder, under intense police interrogation, Knox said Lumumba broke into their apartment and then sexually assaulted and killed Kercher; Knox, her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and Lumumba were all eventually arrested and jailed on suspicion of murder, but Lumumba had a strong alibi — he was bartending at the time — and was released from custody two weeks later.
“I am very sorry that I was not strong enough to resist the pressure of police,” Knox admitted during the slander trial (via The Associated Press). “I didn’t know who the murderer was. I had no way to know.”
Although bloody fingerprint evidence quickly pointed to 20-year-old Rudy Guede, who had previous arrests for burglary, as Kercher’s murderer, Knox and Sollecito remained under suspicion and, after a trial, were ultimately convicted for the murder in 2009, with Knox receiving a 26-year sentence; two years later, in 2011, forensic evidence during the trial was proven flawed, and both Knox and Sollecito were acquitted during a second trial. However, the slander charge against Knox persisted.
“Amanda is very embittered,” Knox’s lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said following the re-conviction. “We are all very surprised at the outcome of the decision.” Knox’s legal team added they would appeal the conviction, which carries a three-year prison sentence; Knox won’t spend any additional time behind bars, however, as she was credited with time served for her prison stint while wrongfully accused and convicted.
“On June 5th, I will walk into the very same courtroom where I was reconvicted of a crime I didn’t commit, this time to defend myself yet again,” Knox, who now advocates for criminal justice reform and on behalf of the wrongfully accused, tweeted earlier this week. “I hope to clear my name once and for all of the false charges against me.”
