Florence, 5 June 2024 – Amanda Knox back in an Italian courtroom. It happens this morning, June 5, at the courthouse in Florence where she arrived by taxi to attend the hearing before the Court of Assizes of Appeal called to establish whether she is responsible for slander towards Patrick Lumumba (in the context of the legal case for the murder of Meredith Kercher, committed in Perugia and for which she was definitively acquitted).
Process celebrated after the Cassationimplementing a decision of the European Court of Human Rights, annulled the three-year sentence, postponing the proceedings to assess the feasibility of the crime in relation only to the memoir written by the American on the morning of 6 November 2007.
The American arrived at the courthouse with her husband Chris Robinson and is defended by lawyers Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luca Luparia Donati.
The offended party, Patrick Lumumba, he is not in the courtroom. He remained in Poland, where he lives with his Polish wife and works. “Patrick would have liked to be present but work commitments did not allow him to come to Italy,” said his defender, lawyer Carlo Pacelli.
Numerous journalists were present, as well as many correspondents from foreign newspapers and broadcasters.
Today is expected judgment of the court who entered the courtroom around 10. Upon the arrival of the Attorney General Squillace GreekAmanda greeted the magistrate, who returned the greeting.
Knox’s defense immediately contested the filing of a brief by Lumumba’s lawyer. “He did not accept the attorney general’s invitation to enter the main trial,” the lawyers say. The judges of the Assize Court of Appeal, after retiring to their chambers, did not accept the admission of the document.
He spoke for about ten minutes, in good Italian, Amanda Knox. Lobster blouse, light blue skirt, yellow pumps with heels, a flashy tattoo on the right leg. “
Amanda Knox he spoke for about ten minutes, in Italian, going back to the night of November 5, 2007, when he was at the police station. “I would never have testified against Patrick (Lumumba ed), as the police wanted. I didn’t know who the killer was. Patrick was not only my boss at work but also my friend. I had no interest in accusing an innocent friend. Patrick he taught me to speak Italian, he took care of me. Before the arrest, he consoled me for the loss of my friend. I’m sorry that I wasn’t strong enough to resist police pressure and that he suffered as a result.”
“I was a girl 20 years old scared, deceived, mistreated by the police. November 5, 2007 was the worst night of my life. A few days earlier my friend Meredith had been killed in the house we shared. I was shocked, it was a moment of existential crisis. The police – adds Knox – interrogated me for hours in a language I didn’t know. They refused to believe me, they called me a liar, but I was just terrified. I didn’t understand why they treated me in this way, threatening to give me a 30-year sentence if I didn’t remember every detail. A policeman gave me a smack on the head and said, ‘remember.'” During her speech, Amanda Knox had a sheet of paper in her hand with some notes.
Knox explained that with the memorial written in prison he wanted to retract the statements he made. “I humbly ask the Court to declare me innocent,” she concluded. The judges are now in chambers. There judgment not before noon.
