It exploded in tears Amanda Knox after the reading of the sentence of the Assize Court of Appeal of Florence which confirmed his responsibility for the slander against Patrick Lumumba, condemning it to 3 years of imprisonment and 5 years of disqualification from holding public office.
The 36-year-old American reportedly told her defenders, lawyers Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luca Luparia Donati who were next to her: “I didn’t expect it, I’m very disappointed.”
What ended today was the second appeal, in the context of the legal case for the murder of English student Meredith Kercherwhich became necessary after the Court of Cassation annulled the 3-year sentence, ordering the referral to a new judging panel.
Knox has already been definitively acquittedtogether with Raffaele Sollecito, for the murder of the English student which occurred in Perugia on the evening of 1 November 2007. A few days after the crime, in a memorial he indicated to the investigators Lumumba, his employer at the time in a Perugian pub, as the alleged perpetrator of the crime.
The 36-year-old American wrote the memoir on November 6, 2007 before being transferred to prison because she was also accused of Meredith’s murder. For the murder of the English student, the only person sentenced to 16 years in an abbreviated sentence was Rudy Guede. Patrick Lumumba, however, was definitively exonerated after spending 14 days in prison.
The attorney general Ettore Squillace Greco and the civil party, supported by the lawyer Carlo Pacelli, had asked for the conviction to be confirmed, while the defenders of the American, the lawyers Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luca Luparia Donati asked for her to be fully acquitted. Knox, present in the courtroom with her husband Christopher Robinson, made spontaneous statements to the court, claiming that she did not want to accuse Patrick, her employer but also her friend, and regretting her for not being able to resist the pressure of the police.
“I was a 20-year-old girl scared, deceived, mistreated by the police, forced to submit – she explained to the court – November 5, 2007 was the worst night of my life. A few days earlier my friend Meredith had been killed in the house where she lived. we shared. I was shocked, it was a moment of existential crisis. The police 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 , threatening to give me a 30 year sentence if I didn’t remember every detail, he also gave me a smack on the head saying: ‘remember’.
“I didn’t know who the killer was” Knox reiterated in his spontaneous declarations before the Court of Assizes of Appeal. The American, speaking in Italian and with a piece of paper in her hand, hretracing the hours spent at the police station in Perugia when she was arrested for the murder of Meredith Kercher to which she has always proclaimed herself a stranger and for which she was definitively acquitted.
“I went into seclusion to rebuild my sanity” she added, referring to the memorial written in English and handed over to an inspector before being taken to prison. You explained that you had told the investigators that you could not repeat what was said that night in front of a court (interrogations already declared unusable). “But they were too busy arresting an innocent man and saying in front of the cameras that the case was closed,” she pointed out. “I asked for a sheet of paper – she continued – and I wrote that document. The objective was to recant. I wasn’t lying but I wanted to understand if the confusing images in my head were true”.
In the spontaneous declaration he then declared that he was innocent of the accusation of slander against the then Congolese musician. “I do not have never wanted to slander Patrick (Lumumba – ed.). He was my friend, he took care of me and consoled me for the loss of my friend. I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to resist the pressure and that he suffered,” Knox said before the Court of Florence retired to chambers. “I humbly ask you to declare my innocence” he concluded.
The woman, now 36, currently lives in Seattle with her husband and two young children. Together with Raffaele Sollecito, her boyfriend at the time, she was convicted of the Kercher crime in first degree in Perugia and acquitted, again together with him, on appeal. The sentence, however, was annulled by the Supreme Court which ordered a new trial held in Florence and ended with a new conviction, which was then definitively annulled without postponement by the Supreme Court which made the acquittal definitive. For the murder of the English student, the only person sentenced to 16 years in an abbreviated sentence was Rudy Guede.
“No audio or video recordings of the Amanda Knox trial were authorized either inside the hearing room or in the other common areas of the Palace of Justice of Florence, with the exception of the area of the central nave of the Palace itself”, explains a press release. “Given the numerous requests for authorization for television filming, having consulted the president of the College, Anna Maria Sacco”, the president of the Court Nencini specifies that ” the requests cannot be accepted due to the need not to jeopardize the peaceful conduct of the hearing and the decision”. The judicial police on ordinary duty in the Palace of Justice will ensure “strict supervision of the hearing room and access to the blocks of the building, in order to avoid unauthorized video or audio recordings”.
In the crowd of teleoperators and photographers who awaited her upon her arrival at the courthouse in Florence, Amanda Knox had a small accident. She actually hit a camera with her head. For her, a small bump that did not prevent her from attending the hearing. “Nothing serious” assured one of her defenders, Luca Luparia Donati, responding to the press.
