Court in Italy Finds American Amanda Knox Guilty of Slander

A criminal court in Italy convicted American Amanda Knox of slander and sentenced her to three years in prison for claims she made about the murder of her British housemate in Perugia in 2007.

Knox was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday for falsely accusing Congolese bar owner Patrick Lumumba of Meredith Kercher’s murder in an earlier case. Knox had served four years in prison for the homicide, but his conviction was overturned in 2015.

The sentence will have no practical impact because it is already covered by Knox’s time in jail.

A weeping Knox apologized earlier on Wednesday for accusing an innocent man as the murderer, blaming Italian police for her initial false confession. She accused Italian police of threats and assault as she attempted to overturn a defamation conviction in the last case against her since her British flatmate’s murder in 2007.

“The police threatened me with 30 years in prison, and an officer slapped me three times while saying ‘Remember, remember’,” Knox told the court, claiming that police wanted her to blame Lumumba.

“I’m very sorry that I wasn’t strong enough to withstand the pressure from the police,” she said in Italian.

Italy’s highest court ordered retrial

In 2015, Italy’s top court overturned Knox’s murder conviction in Perugia, culminating nearly a decade of judicial drama in which she had twice been pronounced guilty.

The violent stabbing of 21-year-old Kercher, as well as the subsequent trials, fueled tabloid coverage on both sides of the Atlantic and inspired novels and films.

The European Court of Human Rights concluded in 2019 that there were procedural mistakes during Knox’s interrogation, and Italy’s highest court ordered a retrial in the defamation case last year. Lumumba was imprisoned for two weeks in 2007 before being released.

“When Amanda accused Patrick, he became known everywhere as the monster of Perugia,” Lumumba’s lawyer Carlo Pacelli told reporters on Wednesday, arguing that the conviction should stand. Lumumba wasn’t in court.

Knox, 36, arrived to the court holding hands with her husband Christopher Robinson. She made no reply to journalists or television teams.

Rudy Guede, originally from the Ivory Coast, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the murder of Kercher in a ruling that stated he acted with unknown other perpetrators. He received early release in 2021.

Defamation in Italy

In Italy, defamation is a serious offense that can result in both criminal and civil penalties. According to Italian law, defamation is making a false remark about someone that harms their reputation. Unlike many other nations, defamation in Italy can result in criminal prosecution as well as civil proceedings.

If you defame someone, you may face penalties or possibly jail time. Public figures are frequently targets, but the law protects everyone. In the digital age, online defamation has become more widespread. Social media posts that injure someone’s reputation might easily result in legal consequences.

Italy’s tough rules try to strike a compromise between free speech and the protection of individuals’ reputations. To avoid legal ramifications, you must use caution while speaking or writing about individuals, both offline and online.

Source: Reuters