Italy's guilty verdict for
violating the defence rights of Amanda Knox became definitive on
Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights said.
A panel rejected Italy's plea to send the case to the ECHR's
Grande Chambre.
The ECHR ruled on January 24 that Italy violated Knox's
defence rights when she was questioned in November 2007 in
relation to the murder in Perugia of her British flat mate
Meredith Kercher.
It ordered the Italian State to pay a total of over 18,000
euros in damages and legal costs.
The court also ruled, however, that it did not have any
evidence to show that Knox had been subjected to the
mistreatment she had complained about.
"The Court took the view that the Italian Government had not
succeeded in showing that the restriction of Ms Knox's access to
a lawyer, at the police interview of 6 November 2007 at 5.45
a.m. - when there was a criminal charge against her - had not
irreparably undermined the fairness of the proceedings as a
whole," a statement read.
Knox said she hoped the ruling "will be the last legal affair
linked to this story".
The American former exchange student in Perugia was informed
of the decision by her lawyer via Skype to her home in Seattle,
where she almost broke into tears at the verdict.
Lawyer Carlo della Vedova said Knox's conviction and eventual
acquittal in the death of her housemate was "the biggest mistake
in Italian judicial history in 50 years, also considering the
media clamour aroused by the affair".
"Huge damage was done to this girl," he said.
In a long post on her website, Knox repeated that she had
been questioned for 53 years without a lawyer or interpreter,
and had been slapped on the head while police shouted
"Remember!" at her.
She said she and former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito,
who was also convicted and later cleared, had been subjected to
"psychological torture and abuse".
While finding that her defence rights were violated, the ECHR
found that "it did not have any evidence to show that Ms Knox
had been subjected to the inhuman or degrading treatment of
which she had complained".
It did not deal with Knox's complaint against a conviction
for allegedly smearing an innocent man, Perugia bar manager
Patrick Lumumba, for the crime.
Knox has always said her pointing the finger at Lumumba was a
result of her allegedly violent and exhausting questioning by
police.
Lumumba spent two weeks in jail before being released.
On November 2, 2017, 10 years after Kercher's death, Knox
said she still misses her British former flatmate.
"Ten years ago tonight, my friend was raped and murdered by a
burglar when she was home alone in the apartment we shared while
studying abroad in Perugia, Italy," Knox wrote in a piece
published by WestsideSeattle.com.
"I hate it that my memories of her are buried beneath the
years of suffering Raffaele and I endured in the wake of her
murder. And it's depressing to know that mourning her comes at
the price of being criticized for anything I say or don't say
today. But most depressing of all is that Meredith isn't here,
when she deserves to be. She is painfully missed by everyone who
loved her. I miss her, and I'm grateful for the memories of our
time together".
The 31-year-old American was accused of murdering British
exchange student Kercher together with her then boyfriend
Sollecito in Perugia on November 1, 2007.
The pair were arrested five days later and convicted by a
court of first instance, but this conviction was subsequently
overturned.
The appeal sentence was then thrown out by the Court of
Cassation, Italy's supreme court, which ordered a new trial on
appeal leading to their re-conviction in 2014.
Knox and Sollecito were eventually acquitted definitively by
the supreme court the following year.
An Ivorian, Rudy Guede, was convicted of the murder in a
separate fast-track trial and is serving a 16-year sentence.
Knox recently returned to Italy for the first time since her
2011 acquittal and spoke about miscarriages of justice in a
northern Italian conference.
Kercher's family said her appearance there had been
"inappropriate".
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