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Amanda Knox breaks her silence as she vows to 'fight for the truth' after Italian court re-convicted her of slander in case linked to 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher
Amanda Knox says she's been left 'confused' by yesterday's ruling at an Italian court that saw her slander conviction against a bar owner after she accused him of killing British student Mereditch Kercher in 2007 upheld once again.
Knox, 36, attended the court in Florence, Italy, yesterday morning for the retrial in the hope she could clear her name 'once and for all'.
Seattle-born Knox, along with her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted of murder in their first trial in 2009, but were ultimately exonerated by Italy's highest court in 2015.
However, Knox's 2011 slander conviction relating to Patrick Lumumba who she accused of killing Kercher still hung over her head.
She said today on her podcast Labyrinths: 'I'm feeling confused by this outcome, because I thought this was a very straightforward proceeding. This is not a situation like it's been before.
''It's not a "he said, she said" situation, it's not experts interpreting evidence in different ways, it's a single document that's three pages long.
Amanda Knox, 36, (pictured) attended the court in Florence, Italy, yesterday morning for the retrial in the hope she could clear her name 'once and for all'
Seattle-born Knox, along with her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted of murder in their first trial in 2009, but were ultimately exonerated by Italy's highest court in 2015
The slaying of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student at the University of Leeds, (pictured) fueled global headlines
Despite this, she added that she was feeling 'very determined to keep fighting this', echoing a sentiment expressed on her X, where she wrote, referring to the judges and jury members involved in her case: 'They didn't hear me. But I've been here before. And this won't stop me from fighting for the truth.'
She told Sky News Italy today that she hoped that one day she and the people of Italy 'will understand each other.'
She told the broadcaster: 'I love this country and I hope that one day we will be really able to understand one another.'
She added: 'I haven't' slept, I'm really disappointed. I feel sad but I'm determined.'
Knox yesterday apologised to the court and said that she wrongly accused him after being put under intense police pressure for hours, adding she had been 'scared, tricked and mistreated.'
She said: I am very sorry that i was not strong enough to resist the pressure of police'
But the two judges and six juror today again found her guilty of slander.
While she will not have to serve any additional jail time her lawyers said after the verdict that Knox is 'embittered, upset and surprised' and they were planning to appeal the decision.
Knox told the panel in a 9-minute prepared statement in court: 'I am very sorry that I was not strong enough to resist the pressure of police.'
She said today on her podcast Labyrinths: 'I'm feeling confused by this outcome, because I thought this was a very straightforward proceeding'
Knox initially accused the Congolese owner of a bar, Patrick Lumumba, (pictured outside Perugia's court, central Italy, Tuesday September 16, 2008) of killing Kercher
She has returned to Italy to clear her name over slander charge that she was found guilty of after making claims against a bar owner
She added: 'I didn't know who the murderer was. I had no way to know.'
'The police threatened me with 30 years in prison, an officer slapped me three times saying "Remember, remember",' Knox, 36, said.
She earlier told the judge: 'I never wanted to slander Patrick; he was my friend.'
But Lumumba's lawyers said after the hearing the bar owner's reputation suffered regardless of whether she knew who the murderer was.
'When Patrick was accused by Amanda, he became known everywhere as the monster of Perugia,' Lumumba's lawyer Carlo Pacelli told reporters saying that the conviction should be upheld. Lumumba was not in court.
Knox's lawyer said in response to the verdict: 'Amanda is very upset at the outcome of this hearing, she was looking to have a final point after 17 years of judicial procedure.
He added: 'We are very surprised at the outcome, the decision. We need to read carefully the motivation which will be available in the next 60 days.'
The slaying of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student at the University of Leeds, fueled global headlines as suspicion fell on Knox, then a 20-year-old exchange student, and her new Italian boyfriend of just a week, Raffaele Sollecito.
Amanda Knox and her former lover Raffaele Sollecito have been pictured reuniting in Italy 15 years after they were arrested and wrongly convicted of the murder of Briton Meredith Kercher
Knox, now 36, was cleared of 21-year-old Meredith's murder in 2015, along with her boyfriend from 2007, Raffael Sollecito
Knox and Sollecito were convicted in their first trial in 2007, but acquited in 2011.
They were then found guilty again in 2014, before they were ultimately exonerated by Italy´s highest court in 2015.
She is now the mother of two small children, and has a podcast with her husband while campaigning against wrongful convictions.
Yesterday, Knox wrote on social media: 'I will walk into the very same courtroom where I was reconvicted of a crime I didn´t commit, this time to defend myself yet again.'
She added: 'I hope to clear my name once and for all of the false charges against me. Wish me luck.'
Despite Knox's exoneration and the conviction of an Ivorian man, Rudy Guede, whose footprints and DNA were found at the scene, doubts about her role persist years later, particularly in Italy.
Knox's day in court was set by a European court ruling in 2019 that Italy violated her human rights during a long night of questioning days after Kercher's murder, deprived of both a lawyer and a competent translator.
Last November, Italy's highest Cassation Court threw out the slander conviction that had withstood five trials, ordering a new trial, thanks to a 2022 Italian judicial reform allowing cases that have reached a definitive verdict to be reopened if human rights violations are found.
Knox pictured leaving with penitentiary police after a court hearing in Perugia on September 16, 2008
Ivory Coast man Rudy Guede, 36, (pictured in 2016) was released from prison in 2021 after serving 13 years for brutally killing Meredith - although he always denied any involvement
This time, the court has been ordered to disregard two damaging statements typed by police and signed by Knox at 1:45pm and 5:45pm as she was held for questioning overnight into the early hours of November 6, 2007.
In the statements, Knox said she remembered hearing Kercher scream, and pointed to Patrick Lumumba, the owner of a bar where she worked, for the killing.
Hours later, still in custody at about 1 pm, she asked for pen and paper and wrote her own statement in English, questioning the version that she had signed.
'In regards to this 'confession' that I made last night, I want to make clear that I´m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressure of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion,' she wrote.
But despite Knox's attempts at walking back the accusation, Lumumba was picked up for questioning and held in jail for almost two weeks after she said she had 'covered her ears' while he slit the throat of her flat mate.
Lumumba was only released after a Swiss university professor came forward with a till receipt proving the father-of-two was at work and not involved in the crime.
Speaking to Italian media last year, Patrick, who now lives in Krawkow, Poland, with his partner and children, stormed: 'My life has literally been turned upside down.
'Amanda knew very well that I was innocent, but those few words that she said to the police on the morning of November 6, 2007, '... he killed her', destroyed me in a flash, eliminating the reputation I enjoyed in Perugia'.
However, the slander conviction against Knox endured, a legal stain that continued to fuel doubts about her role in the killing, particularly in Italy - despite the conviction of Rudy Hermann Guede in 2008, a man from Ivory Coast whose DNA and footprints were found at the crime scene.
The burglar was convicted of murdering Kercher and he was sentenced to 30 years behind bars.
Guede's DNA was discovered on Kercher's body despite his claims that he was in the bathroom listening to music when she was killed.
Meredith Kercher, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was killed just three months after moving to Italy for a study abroad programme at Perugia's prestigious university (pictured: in an undated photo released in November 2007)
Meredith's parents Arline (centre) and John (right) Kercher - who both died in 2020 - and her sister Stephanie (left) at a press conference in Perugia in November 2007
Her body was found in her bedroom, partially undressed, with 47 stab wounds.
Kercher's heartbroken family revealed in 2022 that her parents, John and Arline, passed away within weeks of each other in 2020.
In a tribute to Meredith, who was known by the nickname Mez, her surviving siblings said: 'Every anniversary of Meredith's death gives us pause for thought, but of course as with anyone who has lost a loved one - especially in such tragic circumstances - it does not take an anniversary to remember them; it's something you carry with you every day.
'Fifteen years has passed in the blink of an eye but yet we have lived a lifetime in between - something Meredith sadly, was never afforded.
'Losing both our parents within just four months of each other in early 2020 brought its own tragedy but we can take some solace in knowing that they are now united with Mez and no longer have to live with the grief which consumed them.
'Meredith will always be in our thoughts and forever in our hearts.'
She is survived by her sister Stephanie.
Guede, now 36, was released from prison in 2021 after serving 13 years of a 16-year term handed down in a fast-track trial that foresees lighter sentences under Italian law.
Guede was recently ordered to wear a monitoring bracelet and not leave his home at night after an ex-girlfriend accused him of physical and sexual abuse - an investigation is ongoing.