New Trial for Amanda Knox on Slander Charges

There will be a trial for Amanda Knox, but, barring last-minute surprises, without Amanda Knox who will remain in the USA "where she is busy taking care of her two small children, one of whom was recently born." The trial will open tomorrow before the Court of Appeals of Florence to decide again on the slander charged to the American after having involved Patrick Lumumba in the murder of Meredith Kercher but in relation to which the Cassation has annulled the conviction after the pronouncement of the European Court of Human Rights on the violation of the right to defense and for which she now asks to be acquitted. The latest chapter resulting from the controversial judicial case linked to the murder of the English student committed in Perugia on the evening of November 1, 2007. Knox was definitively acquitted of the murder. However, she had always remained the conviction to three years of imprisonment for slander (already served with almost four spent in jail for the crime) linked to having involved Lumumba in the investigation, later recognized as unrelated. This despite having always claimed to have done so because under pressure during interrogations. A thesis also brought to the European Court which attested the violation of the right to have a defender and to be assisted by an interpreter. The introduction of article 628 bis in the code of criminal procedure has therefore allowed Knox, through her defenders Carlo Dalla Vedova and Luca Luparia Donati, to obtain a new trial to eliminate the prejudicial effects of the decisions taken in violation of the Convention for Human Rights. "Amanda Knox returns to Italy? 'I want my children to see what it means to defend the truth'" The Cassation thus annulled the conviction for slander and referred "for a new examination" to the Court of Appeals of Florence. The Tuscan judges will still have to move following a strict path outlined by the same Cassation. According to which "the violation of the right to a fair trial" "in the terms ascertained by the Court of Strasbourg" undermines "at the root the possibility of using as the body of the crime of slander the statements released by Knox" to the investigators on the night of November 6, 2007, when she was then detained, which implicated Lumumba. The written memorandum, in English, before being taken to prison for the supreme judges "cannot be said to be compromised". However, not being able to express a judgment of merit, they have left the evaluation to the Court of Florence which will have to say "whether it actually contains accusatory statements against Lumumba formulated in the awareness of his innocence". In the writing, Knox claimed to "doubt strongly" her previous statements, "made in a state of shock, stress, and deep prostration". She spoke of flashes and "blurred images", of a "dream". "And I'm not sure if these are events that actually happened," she wrote. It is impossible to say whether the Court of Florence will arrange any instructive act or will decide as is. A possibility that would speed up the times for the decision.