Amanda Knox’s conviction Wednesday within the Italian Supreme Courtroom for slander took her abruptly, she mentioned on her podcast launched a day after the decision.
The Supreme Courtroom of Cassation in Rome discovered Knox, 36, responsible of slandering her former boss, bar proprietor Patrick Lumumba, whom she says she was coerced into accusing Knox’s 21-year-old roommate and a fellow trade pupil on the time of homicide for the 2007 killing of Meredith Kercher,
“I actually don’t know what’s going to occur. I’m undecided if the decide was all for what I needed to say,” Knox mentioned in a recording earlier than the decision was learn aloud Wednesday for her podcast referred to as “Labyrinths.” She famous that the variety of instances the decide seemed away from her whereas she learn her assertion aloud “was regarding.”
“I really feel sick. I actually hope that it goes effectively,” Knox added. “It will be tremendous, tremendous significant to me to be acknowledged as harmless as a result of this cost is what everybody factors to say I acquired away with homicide as a result of they are saying an harmless individual wouldn’t have been discovered responsible of slander.”
AMANDA KNOX RE-CONVICTED OF SLANDER IN ITALY OVER ROOMMATE’S 2007 KILLING
In one other recording after the decision, when she and husband Christopher Robinson had been driving away from Florence, Knox mentioned she felt “flabbergasted.”
“I’m nonetheless flabbergasted that they even assume something I mentioned in that was accusatory. I might’ve been and was frankly astonished that anybody might presumably discover me responsible of willingly and knowingly accusing an harmless man of against the law,” Knox mentioned.
She added later she felt “a mix of offended and numb and simply flabbergasted,” like she was “in hostile territory.”
WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE LATEST TRIAL INVOLVING AMANDA KNOX
Knox was a 20-year-old trade pupil from Seattle when she discovered her roommate lifeless of their shared home in Perugia Nov. 2, 2007.
She and her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, in addition to Ivory Coast native Rudy Guede, who had no connection to Knox or Kercher, had been all accused in Kercher’s homicide. Knox, famously dubbed “Cunning Knoxy” in world headlines after she was named a suspect, and Sollecito spent 4 years in Italian jail earlier than they had been acquitted in 2011 and finally exonerated in 2015. Guede, whose DNA and fingerprints had been discovered on the crime scene, was launched in 2021.
The Italian Supreme Courtroom on Wednesday sentenced Knox to 3 years, although she won’t return to jail because of her time already served.
“It actually doesn’t change something in that I used to be already convicted and sentenced to 3 years, and nothing had truly modified,” Knox mentioned on her podcast. “There was solely hope that it might change for the higher, and I suppose I simply form of acquired hooked up to that hope slightly bit.”
She added later that Italian officers had been “improper” within the slander case.
“They’re improper, and so they didn’t need to take duty. They usually simply made it worse by making me undergo extra crap like this,” she mentioned.
Knox additionally shared the assertion she learn aloud in courtroom on her web site and on X Thursday.
“Lots of people assume that the worst night time of my life was on December 4th, 2009, after I was convicted of a homicide I didn’t commit and sentenced to 26 years in jail. Nevertheless it wasn’t. The worst night time of my life was on November 5, 2007,” her assertion started.
“Simply days earlier, I had come house to find the cottage through which I lived remodeled right into a ugly crime scene, and my good friend and roommate, Meredith, remodeled right into a sufferer of horrific violence. I had by no means been so unanchored and weak in my life.”
The police questioned her “for hours in a single day” on Nov. 5, 2007, in Italian, a language she didn’t know on the time however has turn into fluent in over time.
“They refused to just accept my reply that I used to be with Raffaele at his condo and I didn’t know who killed Meredith. They requested me the identical questions again and again, calling into query every little thing I mentioned,” Knox recalled.
“Then the police found a textual content message I had despatched to Patrick on November 1st, saying, ‘Ci vediamo piu tardi.’ This was my poor try at translating the English expression ‘so long’ into Italian.”
Knox labored as a bartender at Lumumba’s enterprise on the time of Kercher’s homicide.
“In English, ‘so long’ means ‘goodbye,’ however the police mistakenly concluded that I had made an appointment to see Patrick the night time of the homicide, and subsequently, that I used to be mendacity about my whereabouts and in some way concerned with the crime,” Knox mentioned in her assertion.
“They insisted that I had met with Patrick and demanded to know what we had accomplished. Once I tried to elucidate that I hadn’t met Patrick, they refused to consider me. Again and again, they referred to as me a liar. However I used to be not mendacity, and I used to be completely terrified.”
Sollecito would in the end change his story, telling police he was not with Knox on the night time of Kercher’s homicide “and that there was bodily proof of my presence on the crime scene connecting me to the crime, neither of which was true,” Knox mentioned in her assertion.
Police threatened 30 years in jail if Knox did not keep in mind who was there the night time of the homicide. One officer slapped her behind the top and demanded she “‘Keep in mind! Keep in mind!'” Knox mentioned in her assertion.
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“Ultimately, I pieced collectively an incoherent jumble of recollections from many various days — and the police typed up a press release and had me signal it. I had been bullied into submission and was too exhausted and confused to withstand. The interrogation was a violation of my human rights. Lastly left to myself, I scrambled to attempt to reassemble my sanity. Although I used to be nonetheless in a daze, my supposedly recovered recollections didn’t appear correct, and I noticed that I couldn’t stand in entrance of a jury and testify to the statements I had signed.”
The doc Knox signed implicating Lumumba was addressed in courtroom Wednesday. Knox mentioned the doc is “proof” she was “lied to and abused by the police” at 20 years outdated.
“I couldn’t be the witness in opposition to Patrick that the police wished me to be. I didn’t know who killed Meredith. There was no means for me to know,” Knox mentioned. “Patrick was not simply my boss; he was my good friend. I might by no means knowingly accuse an harmless individual, a lot much less a good friend, of a grave crime.
“Patrick gave me the chance to observe Italian by serving prospects in his pub. He seemed out for me. The day earlier than our arrests, he consoled me for the horrible lack of my good friend. I really feel horrible that I used to be not sturdy sufficient to withstand the stress from the police, and that he suffered in consequence.”
The Italian courtroom’s responsible verdict got here after Knox learn her assertion. Robinson mentioned his spouse didn’t topple over and cry as she did when she was convicted of homicide years in the past. As an alternative, Knox remained calm, and the pair “high-tailed it out of Florence.”
Knox nonetheless lives in Seattle together with her husband and their two youngsters.
