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FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — A Florence appeals courtroom on Wednesday opens a brand new slander trial in opposition to Amanda Knox primarily based on a 2016 European Court docket of Human Rights determination that her rights had been violated throughout an extended night time of questioning into the homicide of her British roommate with no lawyer and official translator.
Italy’s highest Cassation Court docket in November threw out the slander conviction, the one remaining responsible verdict in opposition to Knox after the identical courtroom definitively threw out convictions for 21-year-old Meredith Kercher’s 2007 homicide in opposition to Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, eight years in the past.
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The slander cost stems from Knox’s accusation in opposition to the Congolese proprietor of a bar the place she labored part-time throughout an in a single day interrogation within the Perugia police station. The accusation appeared in statements typed by police that Knox signed, however which have been dominated inadmissible on this trial by the excessive courtroom.
Knox, who was a 20-year-old pupil with rudimentary Italian-language potential who had just lately arrived in Perugia, recanted the accusation in a four-page handwritten notice in English penned the next afternoon, which is the one proof that the courtroom can rule on within the new trial, her lawyer stated.
Regardless of Knox’s makes an attempt at strolling again the accusation, bar proprietor Patrick Lumumba was picked up for questioning and held for practically two weeks. Lumumba, who has since left Italy, is becoming a member of the prosecution as a civil participant, as allowed by Italian legislation.
The slander conviction carried a three-year sentence, which Knox served throughout practically 4 years of detention till being launched after a Perugia appeals courtroom discovered her and Sollecito not responsible. The Cassation Court docket later threw out that call, and the defendants had been convicted once more by a Florence appeals courtroom earlier than the very best courtroom in 2015 exonerated each Knox and Sollecito, stating they didn’t commit the homicide.
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Knox, now 36, stays in the USA, the place she campaigns for judicial reform and has a wide range of media initiatives together with a podcast and a restricted sequence on her case in improvement with Hulu. She was not anticipated at Wednesday’s listening to.
Kercher’s throat and been slit when her semi-nude physique was discovered Nov. 2, 2007 beneath a blanket in her locked bed room in an residence she shared with Knox and two Italian roommates.
Rudy Guede, whose DNA and footprints had been discovered on the scene, was convicted of the homicide in a fast-track trial and sentenced to 16 years in jail. He was launched after serving 13 years, and is presently being investigated for allegedly bodily and sexually assaulting a former girlfriend since being freed.
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