Amanda Knox, a native of Seattle (northwest United States), was 20 years old when she was arrested with her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, for the brutal murder of Meredith Kercher, 21, in the apartment where They shared in Perugia, in the center of the country.
Convicted at first instance in 2009, they were acquitted on appeal, then retried and finally exonerated in cassation in 2015. The American had spent four years in prison in Italy.
During the investigation, she implicated the Congolese Patrick Lumumba, owner of a bar, in the murder, although he was quickly exonerated. She was sentenced in 2011 to three years in prison for defamation against him, without being sent back behind bars.
Last October, however, the Court of Cassation overturned this conviction and ordered a new trial in Florence, the next hearing of which is scheduled for Wednesday.
“On June 5, I will enter the courtroom where I was previously convicted of a crime I did not commit, this time to defend myself again“, wrote Amanda Knox, now 36, on X.
“I hope to clear my name once and for all of the false accusations (…). Wish me luck!“, she added.
Amanda Knox had denounced Mr. Lumumba during an interrogation during which investigators, according to her account, shouted at her, slapped her and threatened her.
In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights found that Ms Knox had not benefited from adequate legal protection or a professional interpreter during her interrogation and that her treatment had “compromised the fairness of the procedure as a whole“.
Meredith Kercher was found half-naked and stabbed 47 times with signs of sexual assault.
Rudy Guede, an Ivorian immigrant whose DNA was found at the crime scene, was sentenced in 2008 to 30 years in prison for murder and sexual assault, a sentence which was later reduced to 16 years.
He was granted early release in November 2021.
This murder involving young students, sex and marijuana aroused the interest of the media around the world at the time.
