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CRIME

Italian police violated Amanda Knox’s human rights: European court

Europe's top rights court on Thursday ordered Italy to pay thousands of euros in damages to Amanda Knox, the American student acquitted in 2015 of the gruesome killing of her British housemate after spending years behind bars.

Published: 24 January 2019 12:31 CET
Italian police violated Amanda Knox's human rights: European court
Amanda Knox back at home in the US. Photo: Stephen Brashear/Getty Images/AFP

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, said Italian authorities failed to provide a lawyer for Knox in the initial days of an eight-year legal drama which made global headlines.

She served four years in prison over the November 2007 killing of her roommate, British exchange student Meredith Kercher.

Knox and her boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted of the murder despite their denials of any involvement. Knox's sentence was stiffened to 28 years in prison when the conviction was upheld in 2014, though both she and Sollecito were acquitted by Italy's top court the following year.

That court later denounced “major flaws” in the police's handling of the investigation, as well as the absence of a “body of evidence” allowing for a safe conviction or any admissible DNA evidence linking the pair to the murder.

READ ALSO: 'Meredith Kercher should not be forgotten'


Photo: © John Kercher, supplied by TJMK

In the meantime Knox filed a claim with the European court of unfair treatment at the hands of the Italian police, in particular during overnight questioning on November 6th, 2007.

She claimed she was slapped on the head twice during the interrogation, and forced to speak despite being exhausted and unable to show “discernment or willpower”.

Knox also said she was not assisted by an independent and professional interpreter, but only a police employee who acted instead as a “mediator” who encouraged her to “imagine hypothetical scenarios”.

'I was in shock'

Kercher's half-naked body was found on November 2nd, 2007, in a back room of the apartment she and Knox shared in the central city of Perugia. The 21-year-old had been stabbed 47 times and had her throat slashed. Police also found signs of sexual assault.

During the initial questioning, Knox eventually accused her former manager at a pub of murdering Kercher — a statement she signed but then withdrew. The manager was eventually released without charge, prompting prosecutors to accuse Knox of making a “malicious accusation”.

The rights court judges ruled that Italian authorities had improperly denied access to a lawyer and failed to assess the conduct of the police interpreter, which had “compromised the fairness of the proceedings as a whole”.

READ ALSO: 

“I was in shock, and I volunteered to help the Perugian police in any way I could,” Knox said in a statement after Thursday's ruling, citing 53 hours of questioning over five days “without a lawyer, in a language I understood maybe
as well as a 10-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!',” she said.

But while faulting Italian authorities for not investigating Knox's claims of mistreatment and violence, the court found no evidence of “inhuman or degrading treatment”.

€18,400 in damages

Knox nonetheless thanked the court for “acknowledging the reality of false confessions”.

She had sought €500,000 in damages and an additional €2.2 million for legal and travel costs incurred by her and her parents, who travelled from their home in Seattle, Washington, to be at her side during the years of legal proceedings. But the court ordered Italy to pay only €18,400 in damages and legal costs.

While Knox and Sollecito were in jail, Italian police arrested an Ivory Coast-born drifter and small-time drug dealer named Rudy Guede over the murder.

The judge in Guede's fast-track trial in 2008 ruled that he could not have acted alone, a decision which prosectors seized on to pursue the charges against Knox.

Guede has insisted he is innocent, saying he had consensual sex with Kercher before going to the bathroom, where he listened to loud music on his headphones, and when he came back out she had been attacked. But an Italian court last year denied a review of his conviction, upholding his 16-year sentence.

Since her release Knox has returned to Seattle, where she works as a journalist. She has also written a memoir of her ordeal, 'Waiting To Be Heard'.

READ ALSO: Knox trial puts fear into American students


Photo: Tizana Fabi/AFP

By AFP's Clémentine Rigot

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CRIME

REVEALED: Where in Italy you’re most likely to be a victim of crime

From theft and home burglary to cyber fraud and extortion, the latest figures reveal where in Italy you are most likely to fall victim to crime and the most common types of offences in major cities around the country.

Published: 17 September 2024 11:15 CEST
REVEALED: Where in Italy you're most likely to be a victim of crime

While Italy is among the safest countries in the world – it ranked 33rd out of 163 in the latest Global Peace Index report, right above the UK – crime is still a concern, especially in metropolitan cities and tourist hotspots.

According to the annual crime report from newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, which collated the most recent data from Italy’s Department of Public Security, Milan was the Italian city with the highest crime rate in 2023.

Overall, some 230,394 crimes were reported in the northern metropolis last year, which corresponded to 7,094 offences for every 100,000 residents.

Milan was followed by Italy’s capital, Rome, with 6,071 reported crimes for every 100,000 residents (up by nearly 600 compared to 2022) and Florence, with 6,053.

The top ten was completed by Rimini (6,002 reports for every 100,000 residents), Turin (5,685), Bologna (5,539), Prato (4,887), Imperia (4,838), Venice (4,825) and Livorno (4,743).

At the other end of the spectrum, Oristano, Sardinia, was the Italian city with the lowest crime rate in 2023 as it ‘only’ saw 1,511 offences for every 100,000 residents. 

Oristano was followed by Potenza, Basilicata (1,934) and Treviso, Veneto (2,258).

Single-offence rankings

While the overall crime rate ranking provides a picture of Italy’s major crime hotspots, it doesn’t allow for any insight into the types of offences committed locally, which is why it is worth looking into single-offence rankings. 

Milan, Rome and Rimini (a popular seaside resort on Emilia Romagna’s Adriatic coast) were the Italian cities with the highest theft rates in 2023, with the northern city registering nearly 3,900 reported thefts (furti) for every 100,000 residents and the capital stopping just shy of the 3,500 mark.

Milan was also Italy’s least-safe city when it came to petty theft and pickpocketing, with over 900 such offences reported for every 100,000 residents.

READ ALSO: How bad is pickpocketing in Italy’s major cities?

Florence was the Italian city with the highest robbery rate (rapine), with 136 offences for every 100,000 residents. 

The Tuscan city was followed by Milan (128) and Prato (124).

Outside of big cities and popular tourist destinations, a number of smaller and, perhaps, slightly unassuming Italian cities had their own crime ‘specialisations’ in 2023. 

For instance, Ragusa, Sicily, ranked first in vehicle theft, while Pisa, Tuscany, came in first in reported home burglary offences.

Trieste, Friuli Venezia Giulia, had the highest sexual assault rate (24 reports for every 100,000 residents) in the country, whereas Crotone ranked first for attempted murder.

READ ALSO: The 8 red flags to look out for to avoid rental scams in Italy

Turin came in first for cyber fraud and online scams, while Isernia, Molise, was Italy’s extortion capital. 

National picture

At a national level, reported crimes were up by 3.8 percent compared to 2022, with online fraud and robbery registering 10.3- and 9.5-percent increases respectively. 

Assault offences also registered a 3.1-percent year-on-year increase, while there were 341 murders in 2023 – up by 13 against 2019. 

According to Marco Dugato, a researcher at the Crime Observatory of Milan’s Cattolica University, the latest increases “must be monitored, particularly for certain types of crime”.

In particular, “the rise of more impulsive, less planned, but more aggressive forms of criminal activity” such as assault and robbery “is of concern”. 

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