FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — Amanda Knox He is back on trial She was charged with defamation on Wednesday for wrongly accusing a Congolese man of killing her roommate while the young women were exchange students in Italy. Knox herself was convicted of murder before being acquitted in a case that captured the international spotlight.
Knox was a 20-year-old student studying rudimentary Italian and recently arrived in Perugia, when she endured a long night of questioning about the murder of Meredith Kercher. She ended up accusing the owner of the bar where she worked part-time of murdering the 21-year-old British student.
In 2016, European Court of Human Rights She ruled that the interrogation violated her rights because she was interrogated without a lawyer or official translator. In November, Italy's highest cassation court overturned the defamation conviction, the only ruling remaining against Knox after the same court. The convictions were permanently overturned For Kercher's murder, Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were charged nine years ago.
This conviction remains a legal stigma against her, especially in Italy, where she is seeking a new life in the United States by campaigning for judicial reform.
Another man was convicted of Kercher's murder in 2007.
Knox, 36, was not expected to attend Wednesday's hearing in Florence, and judges announced she would be tried in absentia. She remains in the US, where she has a variety of media projects including a podcast and a limited series about her case in development with Hulu.
Knox's accusations against bar owner Patrick Lumumba appeared in statements written and signed by police, but were ruled inadmissible in this new trial.
Her lawyer said she recanted the accusation in a four-page handwritten English-language note written the next afternoon, the only evidence the court could rule on.
Despite Knox's attempts to retract the accusation, Lumumba was arrested for questioning and detained for approximately two weeks. Lumumba, who has since left Italy, is joining the prosecution as a civil participant, as allowed by Italian law.
The libel conviction carried a three-year prison sentence, which Knox served during nearly four years of detention until the Perugia Court of Appeal found she and Sollecito not guilty. After six years of volatile rulings, Knox was finally acquitted by Italy's highest court of murder in 2015.
Kercher's body was found with her throat slit on November 2, 2007, in her locked bedroom in the apartment she shared with Knox and two roommates.
Rudi Guidi, whose DNA and footprints were found at the scene, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He was released After serving 13 years, he is currently being investigated Alleged physical and sexual assault Ex-girlfriend since her release.
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This story has been corrected to show that the murder conviction against Knox was permanently overturned nine years ago, not eight.
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