Italy’s highest court has decided to uphold the conviction of Amanda Knox for slander related to the 2007 murder of her British flatmate, Meredith Kercher.
The ruling is the latest part of a 17-year legal saga which ultimately exonerated her for the 2007 fatal stabbing in the Italian university town of Perugia, north of Rome.
British exchange student Meredith Kercher
British student Meredith Kercher, 21, was brutally murdered in the apartment she shared with Amanda Knox, the American who was initially found guilty of the killing along with her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
Ms Knox served four years in prison before being acquitted in 2011, along with Mr Sollecito. They were fully exonerated by Italy’s highest court in 2015.
But among a complex series of legal twists and turns, in June 2024, an appeals court in Florence handed Ms Knox, 37, a
three-year sentence for wrongly accusing a Congolese man of the murder.
Patrick Lumumba was the owner of a bar where Ms Knox, then a 20-year-old university student, had worked part-time.
She avoided jail as the sentence counted as time already served in prison.
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Amanda Knox speaking last June about ‘unjust and incorrect verdict’
Last June, she lost her bid to overturn that conviction and later told Sky TG24, Sky News’ sister channel in Italy, that she was a “victim” and did not slander anyone.
“I didn’t slander Patrick; I didn’t kill my friend [Meredith]. I have been unjustly accused for 17 years. I spent four years in prison as an innocent,” she said.
She claimed that during her initial police questioning, she was “psychologically tortured, abused and mistreated” by officers.
Patrick Lumumba and his lawyer Carlo Pacelli appeared at Italy’s top appeals court on Thursday. Pic: Reuters
Ms Knox was not at the hearing at Italy’s top court on Thursday, instead following it from the US. Earlier this week she wrote on X that “waiting is the hardest part”.
But her lawyer, Luca Luparia Donati, told Sky News they were “incredulous” at the decision and would consider “supranational initiatives to rectify what we believe to be a judicial error”.
Patrick Lumumba, who was in the court, said: “I am very satisfied because Amanda made a mistake and this sentence must accompany her for her entire life.”
The former home of Meredith Kercher in 2008 in the Umbrian city of Perugia. File pic: Reuters
Read more:
Knox: Why was she back in court?
Knox Film: Trial Was ‘Soap Opera’
Knox is now a mother of two small children who advocates for criminal justice reform and campaigns against wrongful convictions.
Another man, Rudy Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was convicted of sexual assault and murder after his DNA was found at the crime scene.
He was freed in 2021, after serving 13 years of a 16-year term.
Former Perugia public prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, who led the investigation into Ms Kercher’s murder, told Sky News last year that “there may still be a culprit who took part in the murder and who has not been discovered yet”.