Europe court orders Italy to pay damages to Amanda Knox

Last edited Thu Jan 24, 2019, 07:51 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: Star Tribune

MILAN -- Europe's human rights court has ordered Italy to pay Amanda Knox around 18,000 euros ($20,000) in financial damages for police failure to provide legal assistance and a translator during questioning following the Nov. 1, 2007 killing of her British roommate.

The European Human Rights Court in Strasbourg, France, on Thursday ruled that Italy must pay Knox 10,400 euros damages plus 8,000 euros for costs and expenses.

Read more: http://www.startribune.com/european-court-to-rule-on-amanda-knox-mistreatment-case/504793842/

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Amanda was declared innocent of the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher, a few years ago, by Italy's highest court (not just "not guilty" -- innocent.) However, she had already served three years in prison, and the court decided that was a just sentence for "slandering" her employer, a man the initial prosecutor pressured her into naming. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in her favor, saying Amanda did not have a fair trial on the slander charges.

Amanda's statement begins here:

http://www.amandaknox.com/2019/01/24/european-court-of-human-rights-2/#comment-30536

Today, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that my slander conviction was unjust. I am grateful for their wisdom in acknowledging the reality of false confessions, and the need to reform police interrogation methods.

I remain forever grateful to everyone around the world who has believed in me, defended me, and spoken out on my behalf throughout the years. I couldn't have survived this without your support.

In early November 2007, I was studying abroad in Perugia, Italy, when a local burglar named Rudy Guede broke into my home and raped and killed my friend and roommate, Meredith Kercher. I was in shock, and I volunteered to help the Perugian police in any way I could. But they weren't interested in my help. They were determined to break me.

I was interrogated for 53 hours over five days, without a lawyer, in a language I understood maybe as well as a ten-year-old. When I told the police I had no idea who had killed Meredith, I was slapped in the back of the head and told to "Remember!"

The police found my text messages to my boss, Patrick Lumumba. He had given me the night off, and I'd written back, "Ci vediamo pi tardi," a literal translation of the English idiom "see you later." It isn't an idiom in Italian. The police read that sentence as a literal plan: "We will see each other later." This small linguistic misunderstanding could have been just that. But the Perugian investigators refused to believe me when I told them I had not met Patrick that night. They painted a story for me, about how I had witnessed Patrick killing Meredith. They told me I was traumatized by the incident and had amnesia. When I told them that wasn't true, they said I was lying, or confused. They bombarded me with questions and scenarios, over and over again, into the morning.

I trusted these people. They were adults. They were authorities. And they lied to me. They lied to me that there was physical evidence of my presence at the crime scene. They lied to me that Raffaele said I went out that night. They threatened me with thirty years in prison if I didn't remember what they wanted me to remember. Finally, in the delirium they put me through, I didn't know what to believe. I thought, for a brief moment, maybe they were right. Maybe I did have amnesia. I told them I could see blurred flashes of Patrick, like they said. I told them I could imagine hearing Meredith screaming, like they said. They wrote the statements; I signed them. Then they rushed out to arrest Patrick Lumumba.

Within hours, I retracted those statements. I told them I had not met Patrick that night. They didn't care. Patrick had a rock-solid alibi. They didn't care. They locked him up, upending his life. And they didn't release him until two weeks later, when DNA from the crime scene came back and identified the actual killer: Rudy Guede.

SNIP

ALSO . . .

Amanda and author Christopher Robinson became engaged in November.


https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2018/11/17/amanda-knox-engaged-boyfriend-christopher-robinsons-nerdy-proposal/2034534002/