Amanda Knox Reconvicted for Slander in Italian Court

Amanda Knox has been reconvicted for slander by a court in Florence, years after she was acquitted of murdering her British roommate Meredith Kercher in 2007.

The 36-year-old will not go to prison as she has already served four years for the murder, for which she was originally convicted.

At the time she was also convicted of slander for blaming the murder on local bar owner Patrick Lumumba during police interrogation, but that conviction was quashed last year and a retrial ordered.

Amanda Knox’s lawyers have said they expect to appeal against the latest verdict.

They added that Amanda Knox was disappointed as she was hoping to finally clear her name after years of legal battles.

She told the court on June 5 that police had coerced her into implicating Patrick Lumumba.

Patrick Lumumba was arrested in connection with the 2007 murder and spent two weeks behind bars, but was released without charge after a customer gave him an alibi.

Despite this, his lawyers said the case has affected his reputation, and that he “became known everywhere as the monster of Perugia”.

His lawyer told reporters outside the courthouse before the hearing: “He lost his job, had his bar seized for months, and had to return to Poland, because his wife was Polish.”

Patrick Lumumba was not in court.

The hearing was held behind closed doors, and audio and video recording was prohibited.

Amanda Knox was famously tried, convicted and later acquitted for the murder of 21-year-old student Meredith Kercher, originally from south London.

Amanda Knox and Meredith Kercher were both language exchange students sharing a house in the university town of Perugia in 2007.

Meredith Kercher, 21, was found dead in their house. Her throat had been cut and she had been assaulted.

Amanda Knox, her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, and a third person called Rudy Guede were convicted of murder and sexual violence in December 2009 and jailed. Amanda Knox was convicted of slandering Patrick Lumumba in 2011.

But the same year, a jury freed Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito on appeal after doubts emerged over forensic evidence used against them, and Knox returned to the US after spending four years in prison.

The duo’s guilty verdicts were reinstated in 2014 then ultimately overturned in 2015.

Amanda Knox is now married with two young children, and is a campaigner for criminal justice reform. She returned to Italy five years ago to address a conference on wrongful conviction, where she spoke of the pain of being tried by the media.