Italy opens new slander trial against Amanda Knox. She was exonerated 9 years ago in friend's murder
Amanda Knox is back on trial for slander for wrongly accusing a Congolese man of murdering her roommate while the young women were exchange students in Italy
FLORENCE, Italy (AP) — Amanda Knox was back on trial for slander Wednesday for wrongly accusing a Congolese man of murdering her roommate while the young women were exchange students in Italy. Knox herself was convicted of the slaying before being exonerated in a case that grabbed the global spotlight.
Knox was a 20-year-old student with rudimentary Italian who had recently arrived in Perugia, when she endured a long night of questioning in the murder of Meredith Kercher. She ended up accusing the owner of a bar where she worked part-time of killing the 21-year-old British student.
In 2016, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the interrogation violated her rights because she was questioned without a lawyer or official translator.
In November, Italy’s highest Cassation Court threw out the slander conviction — the only remaining guilty verdict against Knox after the same court definitively threw out convictions for Kercher’s murder against Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, nine years ago.
