Amanda Knox broke down in tears in an Italian court on Wednesday as she apologised for wrongfully accusing a barman of being involved in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in the hilltop town of Perugia 17 years ago.
The American accused Italian police of slapping her round the head and verbally abusing her during an hours-long nighttime interrogation a few days after 21-year-old Ms Kercher was found stabbed to death in the university town.
She said she was so frightened and traumatised that in the end she bowed to police pressure to accuse Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese barman who she had been working with, of being involved in the murder of Ms Kercher, from Coulsdon in Surrey.
He was arrested and imprisoned for two weeks before being cleared of any involvement. He subsequently moved to Poland, saying his life had been ruined by the false accusations.
Knox, 36, a mother of two young children, was definitively acquitted of any involvement in the murder by Italy’s Supreme Court in 2015 after spending four years in prison.
But the tortuous legal process is not over – she is facing a retrial in Florence where she is accused of slandering Mr Lumumba by telling police back in 2007 that he had some role in the killing.
She was originally given a three-year sentence after being found guilty of slander.
But the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2019 that during her questioning by police in Perugia her rights had been violated.
Last year, Italy’s highest court ordered a retrial, sending the slander case to the appeals court in Florence.
Taking the witness stand in the court in Florence, Ms Knox said that the questioning by police was “the worst night of my life”.
“I was in shock. The police interrogated me for hours and hours in a language that I hardly knew without an official translator or a lawyer.
“They kept asking me the same questions. They did not accept my answers. They refused to believe me. They accused me of being a liar.”
‘I didn’t know who the killer was’
Her voice often breaking, she told the two judges and six jurors in the courtroom: “I couldn’t understand how the police, who I was brought up to trust, could have treated me that way. They told me I had witnessed something so horrible that my mind had blocked it out. They threatened me with 30 years in prison. One of the officers cuffed me round the head and said ‘remember, remember’.
“I could not be the witness against Patrick that the police wanted. I didn’t know who the killer was.”
She said that in the end, “too exhausted and confused to resist,” she agreed with the insistence of officers that Mr Lumumba might have been involved in the murder.
“The police were too ready to lock up an innocent man so they could say ‘case closed’.”
Knox later insisted on writing a retraction, withdrawing her claims about Mr Lumumba.
“I was a young girl of 20 who had just arrived in a new city a few weeks before. I am very sorry that I was not strong enough to have resisted the pressure of the police. I was scared, tricked and mistreated by the police. I gave that testimony in a moment of existential crisis.”
As she finished her testimony she was given a hug by her husband, Christopher Robinson. She was also comforted by her lawyers. A verdict is expected later on Wednesday.
Knox said earlier this week on X, formerly Twitter: “I hope to clear my name once and for all of the false charges against me.”
Only one person was definitively convicted of the murder of Ms Kercher – Rudy Guede, a young man born in the Ivory Coast who lived in Perugia.
He was sentenced to 16 years in jail but was released early in 2021.
The stabbing of Ms Kercher and the decades-long judicial process was closely followed by media in Britain, the US and Italy and inspired books, films and endless discussion.
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