Amanda Knox was back in an Italian
court on Wednesday, attending a hearing of the re-trial of a
calumny case against her in Florence.
The case regards a three-year-term, which Knox has already
served, for fingering former bar owner Patrick Lumumba in
relation to the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia.
Knox initially identified Congo-born Lumumba over the November
1, 2007 murder in the Umbrian city of the 21-year-old British
exchange student, a crime for which the American was first
convicted with her Italian ex boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and
finally acquitted after almost four years in jail.
The 36-year-old writer filed the appeal to definitively annul
the calumny sentence on the basis of a European Court of Human
Rights ruling that her defence rights were violated during the
initial investigation.
In October Italy's supreme Court of Cassation overturned the
conviction and ordered a retrial.
Knox arrived at the hearing with her husband Chris Robinson and
her lawyers.
She did not saying anything to the throng of reporters outside
the courthouse, but one of her lawyers said she would address
the court.
Her lawyers say she was the victim of a violation of the rights
of a defendant and of a media trial and should be acquitted.
Lumumba is a civil plaintiff in the trial and his lawyer has
asked for calumny conviction to be reinstated.
Knox and Sollecito were arrested five days after the murder and
convicted by a court of first instance, but this conviction was
subsequently overturned.
The appeal sentence was then thrown out by the Court of
Cassation, Italy's supreme court, which ordered a new trial on
appeal leading to their re-conviction in 2014.
Knox and Sollecito were eventually acquitted definitively by the
supreme court the following year.
Rudy Guede, an Ivorian, was convicted and sentenced to 16 years
for the murder.
He was released from prison in November 2021 after serving 13
years.
In February a court ordered hm to be placed under special
surveillance after he was found guilty of beating his ex
girlfriend.
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