Amanda Knox gets a final shot at clearing her name of slander in Italy's top court
Share:
Amanda Knox has a final shot at clearing her name of the last vestige of criminal wrongdoing when Italy’s highest court on Thursday hears her appeal of a slander conviction for falsely accusing a Congolese bar owner in the 2007 murder of her British flatmate.
“I’ve been having nightmares about getting a bad verdict and just living the rest of my life with a shadow hanging over me. It’s like a scarlet letter,’’ Knox said recently on her Labyrinths podcast. The ruling should bring an end to a sensational 17-year legal saga that saw Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend convicted and acquitted in flip-flop verdicts in 21-year-old Meredith Kercher’s brutal murder, before being exonerated by the highest Cassation Court in 2015.
The slander conviction against Knox remained the last legal stain against her. It survived multiple appeals, and Knox was reconvicted on the charge in June after a European court ruling that Italy had violated her human rights cleared the way for a new trial.
Knox, now 37, will not attend the Cassation Court hearing, her defense lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said. Even if the high court upholds the conviction and three-year sentence, Knox does not risk any more time she jail. She has already served nearly four years during the investigation, initial murder trial and first appeal. Knox said the aim is to clear her name of all criminal wrongdoing.
