European Court of Human Rights Orders Italy to Compensate Amanda Knox for Human Rights Violations (January 24, 2018) [1]
On January 24, 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ruled [3] (available in French) in Knox v. Italy that Italy had violated the human rights of Amanda Knox, an American who had been studying in Italy in 2007 when her roommate was killed, in handling the proceedings that led to her conviction for malicious accusation. The case concerns the circumstances surrounding Knox’s accusation that a pub manager killed her roommate while she was being interrogated, after which he was found to be innocent and she was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for making a malicious accusation. As stated in the press release, the Court held [4] that there had been violations of the procedural limb of Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment) for the state’s failure to conduct an investigation into the ill-treatment she received while being interrogated; Article 6 §§ 1 and 3(c) (right to legal assistance) for the restrictions put on Knox’s access to a lawyer when there was a criminal charge against her; and Article 6 §§ 1 and 3(e) (right to the assistance of an interpreter) due to the improper conduct of the interpreter Knox was given during her interrogation that may have impacted the outcome of the criminal proceedings. The Court ordered Italy to pay Knox EUR 10,400 for non-pecuniary damage and EUR 8,000 for costs and expenses.