Amanda Knox, whose libel conviction by Italy’s Supreme Court on Wednesday came as a surprise, she said in a podcast published the day after the verdict.
Rome’s Supreme Court found Knox, 36, guilty of defaming her former boss, bar owner Patrick Lumumba, after she claimed he coerced her into reporting her 21-year-old roommate and fellow exchange student at the time of the murder, for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher.
“I really don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know if the judge was interested in what I had to say,” Knox said in a recording before the verdict was read Wednesday. A podcast called “Labyrinth.” She noted that she was “concerned” by the number of times the judge looked away while reading the statements aloud.
“I feel bad and I really hope it works out,” Knox added. “It means a lot to me to be found innocent because this charge is saying that an innocent person couldn’t be convicted of libel and that I got away with murder.”
Amanda Knox re-convicted in Italy on libel charges in 2007 murder of roommate
Amanda Knox reacts to the day her libel case was decided in an Italian court in Florence, Italy, on June 5, 2024. (Claudia Greco/Reuters)
In another recording made after the verdict, Knox said she was “astonished” as she and her husband, Christopher Robinson, drove away from Florence.
“I’m still astonished that they think what I said in it is accusatory. I’m honestly astonished, actually surprised, that someone could possibly find me guilty for knowingly and knowingly accusing an innocent man of a crime,” Knox said.
She later added that she felt a mixture of anger, numbness and just plain shock, “like I was in enemy territory.”
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Amanda Knox arrives in Florence, Italy, flanked by her husband, Christopher Robinson (right), and lawyer Luca Ruparia Donati, on Wednesday, June 5, 2024. (Antonio Calani/The Associated Press)
Knox was a 20-year-old exchange student from Seattle when she found her roommate dead in their shared house in Perugia on November 2, 2007.
She and her ex-boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, and Rudy Guede, an Ivorian from Côte d’Ivoire who has no relation to Knox or Kercher, were charged with Kercher’s murder. Knox and Sollecito, who made global headlines after being named as suspects, were acquitted in 2011 and spent four years in an Italian prison before finally being acquitted in 2015. Guede, whose DNA and fingerprints were found at the crime scene, was released in 2021.
Amanda Knox claims man who killed roommate Meredith Kercher will ‘harm more young women’ after release
Knox and Sollecito, who were 20 and 23 respectively at the time of Kercher’s murder, served four years in an Italian prison before being acquitted. (Federico Zirilli/AFP)
Italy’s Supreme Court sentenced Knox to three years in prison on Wednesday, but she will not return to prison because she has already served her time.
“I guess I was just clinging to that hope a little bit.”
“Honestly, I’ve already been convicted and sentenced to three years in prison and nothing’s changed. I just had this hope that things were going to get better, and I guess I was just a little bit attached to that hope,” Knox said on the podcast.
She later added that Italian authorities were “wrong” regarding the defamation case.
Amanda Knox (left) and her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito (right) outside the rented house where 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher was found dead in Perugia, Italy, in 2007. (File Photo/Associated Press)
“They’re wrong and they didn’t want to take responsibility and they made it even worse by putting me through this,” she said.
Knox also published the statement she read in court on her website and on X Thursday.
“Many believe the worst night of my life was December 4th, 2009, when I was convicted and sentenced to 26 years in prison for a murder I did not commit. However, that is not true. The worst night of my life was November 5th, 2007,” her statement began.
“Just a few days ago, I came home to find my cottage transformed into a grisly crime scene and my friend and roommate, Meredith, the victim of a horrific act of violence. I have never felt more anxious and vulnerable in my life.”
Amanda Knox on the day of her verdict in a defamation case in an Italian court in Florence, Italy, June 5, 2024. (Claudia Greco/Reuters)
Police interrogated her “for hours throughout the night” on November 5, 2007, in Italian, a language she did not know at the time but which she has become fluent in over the years.
“They didn’t accept my answers that I was at Raffaele’s apartment and didn’t know who killed Meredith. They asked me the same questions over and over and questioned everything I said,” Knox recalled.
“Police then found a text message I had sent to Patrick on November 1st which read, ‘Ci vediamo piu tardi’ – my poor attempt at translating the English phrase ‘see you later’ into Italian.”
Knox was working as a bartender at Lumumba’s bar at the time Kercher was killed.
Rudy Guede, 36, was convicted in 2009 along with Knox and Knox’s boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, of the rape and murder of 21-year-old Kercher and was released in 2020 after serving 13 years of a 30-year sentence, though his sentence was later reduced to 16 years. (Federico Zirilli/AFP, via Getty/Italian Police, via The Associated Press, Paula Lobo/Disney General Entertainment Content, via Getty)
“Although ‘see you’ means ‘goodbye’ in English, the police mistakenly concluded that I had arranged to meet Patrick on the night of the murder and therefore concluded that I had lied about my whereabouts and was somehow involved in the crime,” Knox said in a statement.
“They claimed I had met Patrick and questioned me about what we had done. I tried to explain that I hadn’t met Patrick but they wouldn’t believe me. Over and over again they called me a liar, but I wasn’t lying and I was absolutely terrified.”
Sollecito eventually changed his story, telling police he wasn’t with Knox the night of Kercher’s murder. “There was also physical evidence indicating I was at the crime scene linking me to the crime, both of which were untrue,” Knox said in the affidavit.
Knox was convicted and jailed in 2007 for the murder and sexual assault of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, in the university city of Perugia, but was ultimately acquitted. (Antonio Calani)
Police threatened her with 30 years in prison if she didn’t remember who was there the night of the murder, and one officer slapped her in the back of the head and demanded, “‘Remember! Remember!'” Knox said in the affidavit.
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“Eventually, I pieced together incoherent fragments of my memories from different days and the police typed up a statement and had me sign it. I was intimidated into submission and too exhausted and confused to resist. The interrogation violated my civil rights. Finally alone, I desperately tried to regain my sanity. Although still hazy, my recovered memories did not seem accurate and I realized I could not stand in front of a jury and testify to the statement I had signed.”
Amanda Knox is pictured outside an Italian courthouse in Florence, Italy, on June 5, 2024, on the day of her verdict in a defamation case. (Claudia Greco/Reuters)
A document signed by Knox implicating Lumumba was considered in court on Wednesday. Knox said the document was “proof” that she was “lied to and abused by police” when she was 20 years old.
“I would never knowingly accuse an innocent person, much less a friend, of a serious crime.”
“I was never able to be the witness against Patrick that the police wanted me to be. I did not know, and had no way of knowing, who killed Meredith,” Knox said. “Patrick was not only my boss, he was my friend. I would never, ever charge an innocent person, let alone a friend, with a felony.”
“Patrick gave me the opportunity to practice my Italian whilst serving customers in his pub. He looked out for me and the day before he was arrested he comforted me after the heartbreak of losing a friend. I am very sorry for the suffering he suffered because he was powerless to resist police pressure.”
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The Italian court’s guilty verdict was handed down after Knox read a statement from her client. Robinson said his wife did not break down and cry, as she had done when she was convicted of murder several years earlier. Knox remained calm and the couple “fled Florence in a hurry.”
Knox still lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.
