By COLLEEN BARRY (Associated Press)
MILAN (AP) — Amanda Knox is facing another trial for slander in Italy this week. The trial could remove the last legal accusation against her, eight years after Italy’s highest court overturned her conviction for the murder of her 21-year-old British roommate, Meredith Kercher.
Knox, who was a 20-year-old student when she was accused of murdering Kercher along with her then-boyfriend in 2007, has since rebuilt her life in the United States. She is now an advocate, writer, podcaster, and producer, drawing much of her work from her own experience.
At 36 years old and a mother of two, Knox advocates for criminal justice reform and raises awareness about forced confessions. She has recorded a series on resilience for a meditation app and has a podcast with her husband, Christopher Robinson. Additionally, she has an upcoming mini-series on her struggles within the Italian legal system for Hulu, with Monica Lewinsky as an executive producer.
Despite Italy’s Cassation Court rulings in 2015 that Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito did not commit the crime, doubts persist about Knox’s involvement, especially in Italy. This is partly due to her slander conviction for falsely accusing a Congolese bar owner of the murder, which was confirmed by the highest court in 2015. However, this conviction was overturned last November based on a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which found that Knox’s rights had been violated during a long night of questioning without a lawyer and official translator.
Knox is uncertain whether a not guilty verdict in the new trial, which begins Wednesday in Florence, will change the minds of her critics.
“I am glad I have this chance to clear my name and hopefully remove the stigma I have been living with,’’ Knox said in December on her podcast Labyrinths. “On the other hand, I don’t know if it ever will, in the way I am still traumatized by it.
Knox mentioned on her podcast that she anticipates testifying, but her lawyer stated she is not expected in court on the opening day.
Knox expressed that she expects to testify on her podcast, but her lawyer stated she is not expected to be in court for the opening day.
Knox said on her podcast that she expects to testify, but her lawyer said she is not expected in court for opening day.
The Kercher family lawyer, Francesco Maresca, stated that the high court’s exoneration did little to dispel doubts following Knox’s conviction by a trial court and two appeals courts, the first confirming her sentence of 26 years and the second raising it to 28 ½ years.
“This trial never ends,’’ Maresca told The Associated Press, obscuring “the memory of poor Meredith, who is always remembered for these procedural aspects and not as a student and young woman.”
Francesco Maresca, the lawyer for the Kercher family, has doubts about Knox’s retraction of her accusation against the Congolese bar owner, Patrick Lumumba, and the verdict in Rudy Guede’s conviction for killing Kercher, which maintains that Guede did not act alone.
Guede, now 36, was released from prison in 2021 after serving 13 years of a 16-year sentence given in a quick trial. He was recently told to wear a monitoring bracelet and stay home at night after an ex-girlfriend accused him of physical and sexual abuse. An investigation is ongoing.
Only Knox’s four-page handwritten statement will be considered in her new trial, to see if it includes elements supporting slander against Lumumba. Lumumba was jailed for two weeks before being released by the police and has left Italy.
The two earlier statements, signed by Knox and prepared by the police in the early hours of Nov. 7, 2007, which included the accusation and were seen as the most incriminating, have been declared inadmissible by Italy’s highest court.
The four-page letter, written during a 53-hour period of questioning over four days starting Nov. 6, reflects someone in a confused state trying to reconcile what the police told her with her own memories.
Knox stated, “Regarding the ‘confession’ I made last night, I want to clarify that I have serious doubts about the truth of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock, and extreme exhaustion.’’
She mentioned police statements threatening her with a 30-year sentence and claiming that Sollecito was turning against her.
Italian lawyer Lauria Baldassare, who founded the Innocents Project, stated that wrongful convictions in Italy are beginning to cause concern. He pointed to 10 cases of defendants receiving compensation for wrongful convictions over the past decade, but noted the difficulty they faced in overcoming the stigma of their initial guilty verdict.
Baldassare mentioned, “There is still a part of the public opinion that does not accept the Court of Cassation’s decision, and these debates become a sport.” He added that Italy is not mature enough to accept an exoneration because social prejudices are stronger than the evidence.
