Amanda Knox has lost her bid to overturn a slander conviction in Italy.
The American woman was eventually cleared of the brutal 2007 murder of her flatmate, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, in the apartment they shared in the Italian university town of Perugia.
But she was only released, in 2011, after four years in prison in Italy.
The slander conviction for wrongly accusing a Congolese bar owner of the murder during an interrogation was the only charge against Knox that withstood five court rulings that ultimately exonerated her.
Image: Meredith Kercher. Pic: PA
What does court ruling mean for Knox?
Knox and her husband were surrounded by photographers as they and her legal team entered the courtroom before the hearing. The 36-year-old is now a mother of two small children.
The Italian court found Knox guilty of slander and issued a three-year sentence.
She had been sentenced to three years for wrongly accusing the bar owner, Patrick Lumumba, of the killing of Ms Kercher in an earlier case. Knox had worked part-time for Mr Lumumba at the time of the killing.
She will not serve any more jail time as the sentence counts as time she has already served in prison.
Knox cried and hugged her husband after the verdict was read out in court.
Her lawyer said: “Amanda is very upset, she was hoping to finally clear her name.”
Image: Knox before the verdict. Pic: Reuters
‘I was a scared girl’
Knox had argued in court in Florence this week that her slander conviction should be overturned because of her treatment by police.
“I have been unjustly convicted,” Knox earlier told the court in an emotional voice.
She said the night of the murder “was my worst night”. She added: “The house where I lived was transformed into a murder scene and my friend was transformed into a victim of terrible violence. I was shocked.”
Knox said she was interrogated “for hours at night in a language I barely knew,” adding: “When I couldn’t remember the details, one of the officers gave me a little smack on the head and shouted ‘remember, remember’ and then I put together a jumble of memories and the police made me sign a statement I was forced to submit.”
She added: “I’m sorry that I wasn’t strong and that I couldn’t resist the pressure from the police… I was a scared girl, deceived by the police and led not to trust her own memories. I humbly ask the court to declare me innocent.”
Along with her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, Knox was convicted of the murder of Ms Kercher in 2007. Both were acquitted of the crime in 2011 and then fully exonerated in 2015.
She has since established herself in the US as an advocate, writer, podcaster and producer – with much of her work drawing on her experience in the Italian legal system.
Image: Diya ‘Patrick’ Lumumba (left). File pic: AP
Statement written under ‘shock, stress and extreme exhaustion’
While Knox and Mr Sollecito were definitively acquitted of murder by Italy’s highest court in 2015, her conviction for slander against Mr Lumumba was not rescinded.
A year later, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled a long night of questioning days after Ms Kercher’s murder violated Knox’s rights because she was questioned without a lawyer or official translator.
In light of this, Italy’s Supreme Court overturned the slander conviction last year and ordered a retrial.
Image: Pic: Reuters
The new trial, which started last April, focused on just one piece of evidence: Knox’s four-page handwritten statement that the court examined to see if it contained elements to support slander against Mr Lumumba.
He was held in jail for two weeks after Ms Kercher’s death before police released him and he has since left Italy.
The letter, which Knox wrote in a 53-hour span of questioning over four days starting on 6 November 2007, reflects a state of confusion.
“In regards to this ‘confession’ that I made last night, I want to make clear that I’m very doubtful of the verity [sic] of my statements because they were made under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion,” Knox wrote.
‘There may still be a culprit at large’
Rudy Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was convicted in 2008 of the sexual assault and murder of Ms Kercher. His DNA was found at the scene. Guede was released from prison in 2021 after serving 13 years of a 16-year term.
He was recently ordered to wear a monitoring bracelet and not leave his home at night after an ex-girlfriend accused him of physical and sexual abuse. An investigation is ongoing.
Former Perugia public prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, who led the investigation into Ms Kercher’s murder, told Sky News during the opening hearing that “there may still be a culprit who took part in the murder and who has not been discovered yet”.
On Friday, Paola Paiva waited in a hotel near Caracas airport, nervous but giddy with excitement to be reunited with her brother, finally.
For five months, Arturo Suarez has been detained in a notorious prison in El Salvador.
“I am going to wait for my brother to call me,” she told Sky News, “and after giving him a hug, I want to just listen to him, listen to his voice. Let him talk and tell us his story.”
Suarez was one of the more than 250 Venezuelan migrants who had been living in America but were arrested in immigration raids by the Trump administration and sent to El Salvador, a showpiece act in the president’s promise to deport millions of migrants.
Image: Paola Paiva holds a vigil for brother Arturo Suarez. Pic: Reuters
Most of the men had never even been to El Salvador before. Their detention has been controversial because the White House claims the men are all part of the dangerous Tren de Aragua gang but has provided little evidence to support this assertion.
The only evidence Paola had that Suarez was still alive was a picture of him published on a news website showing the inside of the maximum security CECOT jail.
He is one of dozens of men with their hands and feet cuffed, heads shaved and bodies shackled together.
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Now he is returning to his home country, one of the bargaining chips in a deal that saw the release of ten Americans and US permanent residents who had been seized by the Venezuelan authorities.
Image: Venezuelans arrive back in home country after being detained in El Salvador
Paola had tried to go to the airport to greet her brother as he disembarked a charter plane bringing the men back from El Salvador but authorities told her to wait at a nearby hotel.
“They told us they are taking them all to a hotel to rest,” she said.
“But I managed to get someone to give my phone number on a piece of paper to my brother, so I am expecting his call tomorrow, as soon as he can access a phone.
“We heard they are going to perform some medical exams on them and check their criminal records,” she added. “I’m not afraid; I’m not worried since my brother has a clean record.
“I am so happy. I knew this day would happen, and that it would be unexpected, that no one was going to notify us. I knew it was going to be a total surprise.”
Image: US citizens released from Venezuela. Pic: Reuters
The Trump administration had paid the El Salvador government, led by President Nayib Bukele, millions of dollars to imprison the men.
Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem visited CECOT last month, posing in front of prisoners for a photo opportunity.
But Cristosal, an international human rights group based in El Salvador, says it has “documented systematic physical beatings, torture, intentional denial of access to food, water, clothing, health care,” inside the prison.
A video which was seemingly filmed aboard the charter flight bringing the Venezuelan migrants back to Caracas shows Arturo briefly talking about his experience inside.
He looks physically well but speaks into the camera and says: “We were four months with no communication, no phone calls, kidnapped, we didn’t know what (the) day was, not even the time.
“We were beat up at breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he continues.
Sky News interviewed Arturo Suarez‘s brother Nelson near his home in the US in April, weeks after Arturo – an aspiring singer – had been arrested by immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) agents while filming a music video inside a house.
Nelson said he believed Arturo’s only crime was “being Venezuelan and having tattoos.” He showed me documents that indicate Arturo has no criminal record in Venezuela, Chile, Colombia or the United States, the four countries he has lived in.
Now Nelson is delighted Arturo is being released – but worries for his future.
“The only thing that casts a shadow in such a moment of joy is that bit of anger when I think that all the governments involved are going to use my brother’s story, and the others on that flight, as political gain,” he said.
“Each of them will tell a different story, making themselves the heroes, when the reality is that many innocent people suffered unfairly and unnecessarily, and many families will remain separated after this incident due to politics, immigration and fear.”
At least 34 people have died after a tourist boat capsized in Vietnam, according to state media reports.
The Wonder Sea boat was reportedly carrying 53 people, including five crew members, when it capsized due to strong winds in Ha Long Bay on Saturday.
It happened at roughly 2pm local time (7am GMT). Rescue teams have found 11 survivors and recovered 34 bodies, eight of them children, the state-run Vietnam News Agency said, citing local authorities.
Image: Rescuer in Ha Long Bay are searching for survivors. Pic: QDND via AP
The People’s Army Newspaper, which cited local border guards, said authorities have not yet confirmed details about the tourists, including their nationalities, as the rescue operation continues.
Most of the passengers were tourists, including about 20 children, from the country’s capital city, Hanoi, the newspaper said.
The incident comes shortly after the arrival of Storm Wipha in the South China Sea, bringing strong winds, heavy rain and lightning to the area.
Image: A body being carried on stretcher after a tourist boat capsized in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. Pic: QDND via AP
The named storm is the third typhoon to hit the South China Sea this year, and is expected to make landfall along the northern coast of Vietnam early next week.
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Disruptions linked to the storm have also had an impact on air travel, according to Noi Bai Airport.
The airport reported that nine incoming flights were diverted to other airports, while three outgoing flights were temporarily grounded due to adverse weather conditions.
Image: Tourist boats cruise in Halong Bay. File pic: Reuters
The winds brought by Storm Wipha reached up to 63mph (101kmph) and gusts of up to 68mph (126kmph) as it passed south of Taiwan on Saturday, according to the island’s Central News Agency.
More than 30 people have been killed after Israeli troops opened fire towards crowds of Palestinians waiting for aid, according to witnesses and hospital officials.
The deaths occurred near distribution hubs operated by the US-Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the territory.
At least 32 people were killed on Saturday, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, while a further 100 people were injured, according to local reports.
Most of the deaths came as Palestinians massed in the Teina area, around 3km (2 miles) away from a GHF aid distribution centre east of the city of Khan Younis.
Image: More than 30 people killed near aid distribution centres. Pic: Mariam Dagga/AP
Mahmoud Mokeimar said he was walking with crowds of people – mostly young men – towards the food hub when troops fired warning shots as the crowd advanced, before opening fire towards the marching people.
“It was a massacre… the occupation opened fire at us indiscriminately,” he said.
Image: Injured Palestinians are brought to Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Pic: Mariam Dagga/AP
Akram Aker said troops fired machine guns mounted on tanks and drones.
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“They encircled us and started firing directly at us,” he said.
The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said it received 25 bodies, along with dozens of wounded.
Seven other people, including one woman, were killed in the Shakoush area, hundreds of yards north of another GHF hub in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, the hospital said.
The army and GHF did not immediately comment on Saturday’s violence.
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The GFH, which has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip, says it has distributed millions of meals to hungry Palestinians.
But local health officials and witnesses say hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli army fire as they try to reach the distribution hubs.
The GHF, which employs private armed guards, says there have been no deadly shootings at its sites, though this week, 20 people were killed at one of its locations, most of them in a stampede.
The group accused Hamas agitators of causing a panic, but gave no evidence to back the claim.
The army, which is not at the sites but secures them from a distance, says it only fires warning shots if crowds get too close to its forces.
The 21-month war in Gaza was triggered when Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage.
An Israeli military offensive has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, while Gaza’s more than two million Palestinians are living through a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
Israel and Hamas have been holding ceasefire talks in Qatar in recent weeks, but international mediators say there have been no breakthroughs.
US President Donald Trump said another 10 hostages will be released from Gaza shortly, without providing details.