Amanda Knox retrial over slander conviction begins in Italy

American appealed for conviction to be dropped after wrongly accusing Patrick Lumumba of murdering Meredith Kercher

An Italian court has opened a new trial against Amanda Knox over a slander conviction she received for wrongly accusing a bar owner of murdering the British student Meredith Kercher.

Knox, who, along with her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, spent four years in prison after being convicted over Kercher's murder in 2007, asked for the slander conviction to be dropped on the basis of a ruling by the European court of human rights in 2019 that found her defence rights had been violated during police questioning in 2007. Italy's top court ordered a retrial of the slander conviction in October.