Viewers have been tuning into Hulu’s The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, an eight-part series about the American student who was accused of and imprisoned wrongly for the murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, alongside her then boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. The series, which has been executively produced by Amanda and Monica Lewinsky explores the case, as well as Amanda’s fight for justice and the “media bias” that she has faced since she was exonerated for the crime; Ivorian native Rudy Guede was eventually convicted for the crime after his bloodied fingerprints were found at the scene.
Although Amanda was exonerated for the crime in 2015, she has subsequently been convicted of slander for accusing her former boss, Patrick Lumumba of the crime. At the time in 2009, Amanda was convicted of slandering Patrick and sentenced to three years in prison; however, following her exoneration of the murder, she attempted to also appeal the slander ruling.
The case was heard in 2024 at an Italian appellate court where two judges, a six-jury panel and two alternates, upheld the decision that she was guilty of slander. Amanda had worked for Patrick, who owned a bar at the time of events, and accused him of the murder during an interrogation. During her appearance in court, she apologised for not trying harder to retract the accusation against Mr Lumumba.
Why was Patrick Lumumba accused of murder and what happened to him?
On 6 November 2007, Amanda told investigators during an interrogation that Patrick, who owned the bar where she worked at, had broken into their flat and sexually assaulted Meredith Kercher before murdering her. The then-20-year-old signed two statements about the accusation prepared by police implicating Mr Lumumba. He was subsequently imprisoned for the crime.
Despite signing the statements prepared by the police, Amanda later penned her own handwritten statement, which questioned the events set out in the police statements. “In regards to this ‘confession’ that I made last night, I want to make clear that I’m very doubtful of the verity of my statements because they were made under the pressure of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion,” she wrote.
© Getty ImagesAs a result of the accusations, Mr Lumumba spent two weeks behind bars for the murder. However, on 20 November 2007, he was released by police without charge after a customer at the bar that he owned gave him an alibi for the crime. The accusations, however, lingered over him and at the slander trial, his lawyers said that some had started calling him the “monster of Perugia”.
Where is Patrick Lumumba now?
Patrick eventually left Perugia after being unable to find work in the wake of the accusations and has remained mostly out of the spotlight. In 2024, it was reported that he is living in Krakow, Poland with his wife and their children. He provided a statement from the Polish city following the upholding of Amanda’s slander charge, saying: “My life has literally been turned upside down.
© Getty Images“Amanda knew very well that I was innocent, but those few words that she said to the police on the morning of November 6, 2007, ‘… he killed her’, destroyed me in a flash, eliminating the reputation I enjoyed in Perugia.”
© Getty ImagesIn 2015, he shared his dismay that Amanda had been exonerated by the Italian courts. Speaking to the Observer, he said: “This is not good for justice, I think it shows the power available for rich people – she’s American and rich. For a country like Italy this is not good. I think there were diplomatic problems with the US and it makes things difficult with the US so they let her free. Amanda is free because she is American, but Americans are human like everybody.”
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