Amanda Knox arrives with her husband Christopher Robinson (L) at the courthouse in Florence before a hearing in a slander case related to the murder of her British roommate in 2007 (Picture: Getty)
Amanda Knox has lost her bid to overturn a slander conviction relating to the brutal murder of her British roommate in 2007.
A tearful Knox returned to an Italian courtroom for the first time in over 12 years today, as she sought to clear her name ‘once and for all’ of a slander charge related to the murder of her former housemate, Meredith Kercher.
Knox, 36, spent four years behind bars after she and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were wrongly convicted of killing her 21-year-old roomate while the pair studied abroad in Perugia.
Kercher’s half-naked body was found in a pool of blood at her home in November 2007, having suffered multiple stab wounds and her throat slit.
Meredith Kercher was found dead on the floor of her bedroom on Nov. 1, 2007 (Picture: AP)
What followed was eight years of complex legal proceedings which saw American-born Knox arrested for her roommate’s murder, found guilty, acquitted, found guilty again, and then finally cleared of all charges in 2015.
The trial made Knox a household name and led to feverish speculation about her role in the killings on social media, despite her being exonerated and an Ivorian man, Rudy Guede later being convicted of Kercher’s murder after his footprints and DNA were found at the scene.
Yet despite being exonerated of the killing, there was one conviction Knox was found guilty of which she had been unable to clear- an accusation she made against Congolese bar owner Patrick Lumumba, which led to her being convicted of slander.
Following her initial arrest, Know pointed to bar owner Luumumba, who employed her at the time, and suggested he may have played a role in the killing.
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Amanda Knox was exonerated of her roommate’s murder after a gruelling eight-year legal battle (Picture: AP)
But hours later, still in custody at about 1 pm, she asked for a pen and paper and wrote her own statement in English, questioning the version that she had signed and claiming it was made under duress.
She wrote: ‘In regards to this “confession” that I made last night, I want to make clear that I´m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressure of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion.’
Lumumba was held for two weeks in 2007 over the incident before he was eventually freed following Knox’s admission.
A European court ruled that Italy violated her human rights during a long night of questioning days after Kercher’s murder, deprived of both a lawyer and a competent translator.
Rudy Hermann Guede was eventually convicted of the killing (Picture: AP)
They ordered a retrial last October which began earlier this year in Florence, and allowed both sides to appeal the verdict.
Despite getting reconvicted of slander today, she will not face any more jail time, as the four years she served before the first acquittal covers the three-year slander sentence.
Knox reportedly showed no emotion as the verdict was read aloud in the court in Florence. Her lawyer said after the hearing: ‘Amanda is very upset, she was hoping to finally clear her name.’
Yesterday, Knox, now a 36-year-old mother of two small children, wrote on social media: ‘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.’
Yet Knox was today reconvicted of slandering bar owner Patrick Lumumba after falsely accusing him of murder in the immediate aftermath of the killing (Picture: Reuters)
She added: ‘I hope to clear my name once and for all of the false charges against me. Wish me luck.’
In October, she wrote: ‘Though I was exonerated for murder, I remained wrongly convicted of slander.’
She said Lumumba ‘was my friend’ at the time of the murder, adding: ‘We are both victims of the violation of my human rights during my interrogation, without which I was helpless against the coercive pressure of the police.’
Knox, now a journalist, author and campaigner for criminal justice reform, was pictured in tears as she arrived at the Florence court this morning, flanked by her husband Christopher Robinson.
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