Knox Never Apologized Says Lumumba of Slander Case

Perugia: The man wrongfully accused by Amanda Knox of killing Meredith Kercher in 2007, Patrick Lumumba, said on Thursday that the American national never apologized and her conviction for slander should be upheld by Italy’s supreme Cassation Court. Lumumba was due to attend a hearing of the Cassation which is set to decide on Thursday whether to uphold Knox’s conviction for slander in the case related to the murder of Kercher, her British flatmate, in the Umbria city of Perugia. “I believe in Italian justice,” said Lumumba. “Amanda made a mistake, she slandered me and never apologized, I expect this conviction to be upheld,” he said.

According to Ansa News Agency, an appeals court in Florence last year handed Knox a three-year sentence for wrongly accusing the Congolese bar owner of killing Kercher. The Cassation’s State attorney has requested the court to confirm the sentence, which Knox has already served, on the grounds that she knew he was innocent when she accused him of the murder. Lumumba was held for two weeks in 2007. “I hope this story ends today and the conviction will accompany Amanda all her life,” added Lumumba, whose lawyer Carlo Pacelli described him as “the second victim of this judicial case.”

Rudy Guede, originally from the Ivory Coast, was convicted for the murder of 21-year-old Kercher and sentenced to 16 years in prison. The sentence said he had committed the murder with other unidentified culprits. Guede was granted early release in 2021.

Meanwhile, Knox wrote on X in the night between Wednesday and Thursday that she had “pulled a Tony Soprano today and fainted.” “Wasn’t looking at ducks, just staring down the verdict that’s coming my way from Italy’s highest court tomorrow morning,” or Thursday, she wrote. “It doesn’t get easier, no matter how many times I’ve been through this,” added Knox. “I’ve been fighting this charge of criminal slander since I was first convicted in 2009,” she wrote in another post, recalling that the charge was upheld when she was acquitted of Knox’s murder in 2015 so she had appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in 2019, “which ruled in my favor.”

“Italy overturned this conviction and sent me back to retrial last year. I am not a liar. I am not a slanderer,” she also wrote on X. Knox spent four years in jail for Kercher’s murder before the conviction was annulled in 2015. The slander case is the last one against her over the 2007 killing.