It is a seventeen-year-old legal drama that has fascinated the whole world. On November 2, 2007, the lifeless body of Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student in Perugia, Italy, was discovered with stab wounds by her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
Initially convicted, then exonerated in 2015 at the end of a very long legal saga, the young woman, now 36 years old, returned to the benches of Italian justice. This Wednesday, June 5, she was convicted of defamation in this case. Back on this profitable affair.
47 stab wounds
On the night of November 1 to 2, 2007, after spending the evening with her boyfriend, Amanda Knox, an American exchange student in Perugia, central Italy, returned home. She shares an apartment with two Italian women as well as with Meredith Kercher, a British student at the University of Leeds, also on exchange.
Upon arrival, according to her account, Amanda Knox noticed signs of a break-in. The front door is open and traces of blood are visible in the bathroom. A few minutes later, the carabinieri arrived on the scene. They search the apartment and discover, hidden under a blanket, the lifeless body of Meredith Kercher, 21, half-naked, lying in a pool of blood.
A few days later, the autopsy revealed that the young British student had received 47 stab wounds and had traces of bruises and cuts. According to experts, the young woman was gagged and raped.
The scenario of a sexual game
Interviewed by investigators, Amanda Knox assures that she spent the night with her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, a 24-year-old computer science student. But her two other roommates having left to see their families, the American was the only one present in the apartment that evening. The couple quickly came under suspicion.
The investigators outline the scenario of a sexual game that went wrong, against a backdrop of drugs. On November 6, during an interrogation, Amanda Knox accused Patrick Lumumba, a friend and Congolese bar owner, of being the murderer of Meredith Kercher. The three suspects are incarcerated.
But on November 19, after discovering DNA traces belonging to Rudy Guede, an Ivorian immigrant, in the victim’s room, Patrick Lumumba was released. The man, who provided an alibi, is completely exonerated. Located in Germany, Rudy Guede is arrested and then extradited to Italy. Before investigators, he admitted to having had sexual relations with Meredith Kercher, but claimed that they were consensual and that he was not involved in her death.
Eight years of proceedings, four years in prison
In 2008, Rudy Guede was convicted of murder and sexual assault and sentenced to 30 years in prison, a sentence later reduced to 16 years. He was granted early release in November 2021.
In 2009, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, who had always maintained their innocence, were sentenced to 26 and 25 years in prison for this murder. Two years later, in 2011, the couple was finally acquitted on appeal for lack of evidence. But in 2013, in a new twist, the Court of Cassation annulled the decision of the Florence Court of Appeal and ordered a new trial.
In 2014, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were again found guilty of the murder of Meredith Kercher by the Florence Court of Appeal and sentenced to 28 years and six months and 25 years in prison, respectively. In 2015, the Italian Court of Cassation overturned this judgment and definitively exonerated them. In total, the couple spent four years in prison.
In 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Amanda 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.
Patrick Lumumba wrongly accused
Five years after the murder of Meredith Kercher, in 2011, Italian justice sentenced Amanda Knox to three years in prison for wrongly accusing Patrick Lumumba. In October 2023, the Court of Cassation annulled this conviction for defamation and ordered a new trial.
At the beginning of June, the young woman, now living in Seattle with her husband and children, posted a message on Twitter: “On June 5, I will enter the courtroom where I have already been convicted of a crime that I did not commit it, this time to defend myself again,” Amanda Knox wrote. “I hope to clear my name once and for all of the false accusations (…). Wish me luck ! “, she added.
Before the judges, this Wednesday, June 5, the American affirmed that she was “in a state of shock, exhausted” during this famous interrogation of November 6, 2007. “The police questioned me for hours and hours, in a language I barely knew, without an interpreter or a lawyer,” Amanda Knox testified.
“They (the police) told me that I had witnessed something so horrible that my brain had blocked it” but “I didn’t know who the killer was,” she said. “In the end, I mixed up inconsistent memories from different days and the police drew up a report which I had to sign.” “I am terribly sorry for not having been strong enough to resist the pressure from the police,” she said again on the stand.
After hearing her, the judges briefly deliberated and sentenced her to three years in prison, a sentence already covered by the four years of detention that the young woman had served after Meredith’s assassination.
Absent from the hearing, Patrick Lumumba was “deeply marked” by this affair, said his lawyer, Carlo Pacelli, upon his arrival at court. “He was seen by everyone as the monster of Perugia and lost his job, his bar was sealed for months,” he argued. “The family and personal harm he suffered is significant.”
