Amanda Knox faces slander retrial over accusing bar owner of murder
Amanda Knox, the American woman who was jailed and then cleared of killing her roommate while studying in Italy in 2007, faces a slander trial this week for accusing a bar owner of taking part in the murder.
Amanda Knox, the American woman who was jailed and then cleared of killing her roommate while studying in Italy in 2007, faces a slander trial this week for accusing a bar owner of taking part in the murder.
Knox was exonerated of the murder, but a conviction of slander for falsely accusing a Congolese bar owner of committing the murder was not rescinded. Knox now hopes that a not guilty verdict will remove any lingering doubt about her innocence and clear her name.
She is not expected to appear in person on the opening day of the trial in Florence on Wednesday, but has said she expects to testify at some point.
Knox, then 20, was sentenced to 26 years for the murder of 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher after a trial that was followed intensely in the United States, Italy and Britain. Kercher was found half-naked in a pool of blood with more than 40 stab wounds at their shared house in the city of Perugia.
Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, of Italy, were released from prison in 2011 having served four years. Italy's highest criminal court quashed the conviction in 2015 due to what it called "glaring errors."
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