Amanda Knox fails to clear her name over slander charge in Italian court

An Italian court has reconvicted Amanda Knox of slander, rubbishing hopes of removing a legal stain that has marked her since she was exonerated of her roommates murder in 2007

Amanda Knox has failed to have her name cleared of a slander charge after wrongly accusing a Congolese man of murdering her British flatmate while they were exchange students in Italy.

Ms Knox was convicted of the murder of Meredith Kercher before being exonerated in a case that grabbed global attention and headlines.

However her accusation against Patrick Lumumba, who owned the bar where she worked, while being questioned by police over Ms Kercher's death landed her back in court this year.

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.

Based on that ruling, Italy’s highest Cassation Court threw out the slander conviction in November - nine years after the same court overturned convictions for Ms Kercher’s murder against Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.

Because of this, and judicial reform in Italy allowing cases that have reached a definitive verdict to be reopened if human rights violations are found, the court ordered a new trial.

Ms Knox asked eight Italian judges and jury members on Wednesday to clear her of a slander charge.

She told the court she wrongly accused an innocent man of the killing under intense police pressure in overnight questioning without the benefit of a lawyer or competent translator. “I am very sorry that I was not strong enough to resist the pressure of police,'' Knox told the panel in a nine-minute prepared statement. She told them: ”I didn't know who the murderer was. I had no way to know."

Ms Knox showed no emotion as the jury's verdict that she was still guilty of slander was read out.

She will not serve any more jail time as the four years she served before her murder acquittal counts towards the three-year sentence for slander.

Knox, now a 36-year-old mother, returned to Italy for only the second time since she was freed in October 2011.

She remained in the United States through two more flip-flop verdicts before Italy’s highest court definitively exonerated the pair of the murder in March 2015, stating flatly that they had not committed the crime.

"I will walk into the very same courtroom where I was reconvicted of a crime I didn’t commit, this time to defend myself yet again," Ms Knox wrote on social media. “I hope to clear my name once and for all of the false charges against me. Wish me luck.”

Ms Kercher’s body was found on November 2, 2007, in her locked bedroom in a flat she shared with Knox and two other housemates.

Rudy Guede, whose DNA and footprints were found at the scene, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to 16 years in prison. He was released after serving 13 years.

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