Amanda Knox’s defamation case was confirmed by the Italian Supreme Court

Italian Supreme Court Amanda Knox, an American woman first accused of murdering her housemate in 2007, upheld a defamation lawsuit on Thursday.

The court’s ruling could end a legal saga that has defrauded followers in Europe and the US. It lasted more than 17 years and was spent in various Italian and European courts. The court upheld Ms. Knox’s three-year prison sentence, but she will not have to serve more time because she served four years in prison from 2007 to 2011.

Ms. Knox, now 37, who lives near Seattle, was not present at the hearing on Thursday. One of her lawyers, Carlo Dalla Vedova, spoke to her after the verdict and said she was “very, very upset”.

“She wanted to close this chapter,” he said.

Ms Knox is trying to clear the last legal stain from her name 10 years after Italy’s highest court convicted her of murdering 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher.

In the year In November 2007, Italian authorities arrested Ms Knox, 20, and her then-23-year-old boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, in connection with the death of Ms Kercher, who was found lying in bed with her throat strangled. All three were studying in the beautiful city of Perugia in central Italy. The involvement of unique and attractive young people from many countries and what prosecutors have described as wrongful sex games have sparked international interest in the case.

In the year Ms. Knox, who was acquitted of the murder in 2009, was acquitted in 2009. She returned to the United States in 2011. When her cases escalated between different courts, in 2010 Rush to judgment.

Rudy Goode, of Perugia, who has a history of run-ins with police, was tried separately and charged with murder. He served 13 years of a 16-year sentence and was released in 2021.

A defamation case against Dia Lumumba, also known as Patrick, was filed in 2011. In 2007, Ms. Knox ran a bar called Lechik, where she worked part-time.

Ms Knox and her lawyers have argued that she was pressured by the police to press charges against Mr Lumumba after she testified that she had been slapped. Mr. Lumumba was arrested and spent two weeks in jail and was released after one of his clients provided an alibi.

Ms. Knox was found guilty of defamation in 2009 and was sentenced to three years in prison after being found guilty by various Italian courts.

In the year In 2019, the European High Court of Human Rights ruled that Italy had to pay 18,400 euros, or $21,000, in compensation at the time that Mrs. Knox was denied adequate legal assistance during the investigation, violating her right to a fair trial. , costs and expenses. The court raised questions about Ms Knox’s role as an interpreter and said her statements during cross-examination were “under intense psychological pressure”.

Italy’s highest court ordered a new defamation case based on the ruling, but she was found guilty again in a Florence court last year. Her appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court of Italy in Rome on Thursday.

At Thursday’s hearing, Mr Dalla Vedova said Mr Lumumba was “with Ms Knox, not Ms Knox’s victim”.

Another lawyer, Luca Luparia Donati, said they would wait to read the court’s reasoning before deciding whether to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. “We are keen to read what they have to say as it undercuts what the European Court of Justice has decided.

“I find this very unfair to Amanda,” he said.

Ms. Knox has said this repeatedly on her podcast. Labsabout the psychological and emotional damage the conviction has caused her. There were also practical implications – this week she wrote on X that she had to cancel a recent trip to Australia because she couldn’t get a visa because of her “criminal” background.

Now a mother of two, Ms. Knox has become an advocate for wrongfully imprisoned people and a campaigner for criminal justice reform after returning to the United States. She is currently producing a Hulu series about the case, which is being shot in Italy and Hungary.

As a result of the charges, Mr Lumumba lost his business and left Italy with his family. He now lives in Krakow, Poland, where he works as an exporter, but died in Perugia, he said in court on Thursday.

He also said he can’t wait to put the matter behind him. “I always remember the morning they came to arrest me and the time in jail,” he said of the endless trials.

Her lawyer, Carlo Pacelli, said Thursday that not only did Ms. Knox not apologize for falsely accusing her client, she never offered to make financial amends.

In Florence last year, Ms Knox apologized, saying: “I was very sorry that I did not have the strength to withstand the police pressure and that he suffered because of it.”

After the verdict, Mr. Pacelli said his client could seek punitive damages, but there could be insurmountable obstacles, because Amanda lives in the United States and is not easy to track down.