Injustice in Perugia
a website detailing the wrongful conviction of Amanda Knox & Raffaele Sollecito
Patrick Lumumba: Who’s accusing who?
Who's Accusing Who?
By Bruce Fischer
Would the outcome of the first trial have ended differently if there had not been a civil trial running concurrently with the murder trial? Unfortunately, that is a question that will forever remain unanswered but it certainly warrants speculation.
There were two civil suits running concurrently with the murder trial. Both would be damaging but one of the lawsuits would carry more weight than the other. The Kercher family filed a lawsuit against whoever was proven guilty of murdering Meredith. Italy allows civil suits to be filed in advance of the outcome of the actual murder trial, a practice not seen in the United States. This is common practice in Italy so the Kerchers were simply following protocol.
The second lawsuit was filed by Patrick Lumumba against Amanda Knox for defamation. This lawsuit would prove to be extremely damaging to Amanda as it certainly influenced the murder trial. Lumumba wanted compensation because Amanda “accused” him of murdering Meredith. Early on, Lumumba had told the press that he was mistreated by the police and endured a brutal interrogation. You would think that his experience with the police would give him an understanding as to why Amanda described a “vision” during her interrogation that imagined Lumumba attacking Meredith while Amanda listened from another room (I discuss Amanda’s interrogation extensively in “Injustice in Perugia” and again in the Preface of this book). As we know, Amanda endured an all night interrogation where she was repeatedly told that Lumumba committed the crime and she was told to imagine that it occurred. Shortly after the interrogation ended, Amanda recanted her statements stating that she was under the pressures of stress, shock and extreme exhaustion. Amanda’s retraction had no influence on the police; they needed their trio of suspects to fulfill Mignini’s fantasy so they rushed out to arrest Lumumba anyway.
The ordeal began for Lumumba and his family in the early morning hours of November 6, 2007, when he and his wife Aleksandra were shocked out of bed by the doorbell ringing, followed by up to twenty police officers barging through their door. Lumumba was forcefully taken from his home as his wife tried to console their screaming son Davide. Lumumba would later recall the event during interviews:
“They were wearing normal clothes and carrying guns, I thought it must be some sort of armed gang about to kill me. I was terrified.”
“They hit me over the head and yelled ‘dirty black’. Then they put handcuffs on me and shoved me out of the door, as Aleksandra pulled Davide away, screaming.”
The police were well prepared when they came for Lumumba, bringing a fleet of seven squad cars to his home in order to give him a safe escort him back to the police station. When Lumumba arrived at the station, much like Amanda, he was subjected to a long grueling interrogation.
Lumumba revealed this information in an interview with the Daily Mail. I certainly do not view the Daily Mail as a reliable source but Lumumba later confirmed everything with Katie Crouch from Slate.com.
“I was questioned by five men and women, some of whom punched and kicked me. They forced me on my knees against the wall and said I should be in America where I would be given the electric chair for my crime. All they kept saying was, ‘You did it, you did it.’”
“I didn't know what I’d ‘done’. I was scared and humiliated. Then, after a couple of hours one of them suggested they show me a picture of ‘the dead girl’ to get me to confess."
“It might sound naive, but it was only then that I made the connection between Meredith's death and my arrest. Stunned, I said, You think I killed Meredith?”
Lumumba spent two weeks in prison before being released because he had a rock solid alibi. Lumumba repeatedly told police that he was at his bar Le Chic at the time of the murder. Thankfully for him, a Swiss professor who had spent the evening in question at Le Chic talking to Lumumba came forward to confirm Lumumba’s whereabouts. Without this alibi, Lumumba could have easily spent a year in jail (like Amanda and Raffaele) waiting to see if the police decided to press charges.
At some point after his release, Lumumba decided to change his story about his ordeal with the police. It seems that money certainly played a major role in his decision making. Lumumba sued the police for his wrongful imprisonment seeking 516,000 Euros (approx. $700,000) in damages, but in the end he was only awarded $8,000.
If Lumumba wanted a higher payday he would have to pursue a case against Amanda Knox. He obviously could not stick with his story that he was horribly mistreated by the police if he expected to win a lawsuit against Amanda because his claims would further support Amanda’s defense argument that her statements were coerced. So, without explanation, Lumumba changed his story. Now Lumumba would claim that he was not beaten by his interrogators and called a stupid black. In fact he decided to buddy up with the same police officers that he had once accused of mistreatment, acting as if they were exemplary officers just doing their jobs.
There is no doubt that Lumumba’s claims were helpful to the prosecution in the murder trial. Lumumba was now praising the police publicly while demonizing Amanda Knox every time he had the opportunity. Lumumba was first to make the claim that Amanda was jealous of Meredith. His claims were obviously fabricated because he barely knew Amanda. Lumumba had never visited Amanda’s home and had rarely interacted with Amanda and Meredith at anytime outside of the bar, yet he somehow knew that tensions were high at the cottage and that Amanda had jealousy issues.
Lumumba also claimed that he fired Amanda for flirting with customers. This claim once again helped Mignini to paint Amanda in a bad light. The truth is that Lumumba never fired Amanda. She was still waiting tables and handing out flyers for Le Chic on a part time basis on the days leading up to the murder. We know that Lumumba texted Amanda on the night of the murder to let her know that she was not needed at work. Why would this text be necessary if Lumumba had already fired her? It is pretty obvious that Lumumba was attempting to smear Amanda in any way that he could. This time he was caught in a lie. Lumumba’s claims were a gift for the prosecution and Mignini did not hesitate to take every negative detail about Amanda and run with it.
Lumumba has spent the past four years defaming Amanda in the press and continues to do so even now that Amanda has been declared innocent and released. As recently as October 31, 2011, Lumumba repeated the lie that Amanda has never shown any concern for his plight and he repeated that he believes that Amanda was responsible for Meredith's death. His opinion has changed very little since making this angry statement right after his release:
“She was angry I was firing her and wanted revenge," he says. "By the end, she hated me. But I don't even think she's evil. To be evil you have to have a soul. Amanda doesn't. She's empty; dead inside. She's the ultimate actress, able to switch her emotions on and off in an instant. I don't believe a word she says. Everything that comes out of her mouth is a lie. But those lies have stained me forever.”
The news often repeats Lumumba’s claims that Amanda has never apologized to Lumumba for his ordeal. The truth is that Amanda does not owe Lumumba an apology, the police do. With that said, Amanda being the kind hearted person that she is, stated on two separate occasions that she felt horrible about what happened to Lumumba and that she was sorry that he was put through hell.
Lumumba's attorney, Carlo Pacelli, has been one of the vilest attackers of Amanda Knox. It is clear that Pacelli is bitter that the compensation was low for Lumumba's confinement, leading him to seek out other avenues for cash. Amanda was an easy target for Pacelli. During court hearings he describes Amanda as a diabolical she-devil.
So the question remains, would the outcome of the first trial have gone differently if Lumumba did not seek damages from Amanda Knox? If the civil suit had not been filed, the court would have not heard anything about the statements that Amanda signed during her interrogation. No information whatsoever about accusing an innocent man would have been presented to the jury. The Italian Supreme Court ruled that the information acquired during the interrogation was inadmissible in the murder trial, stating that the interrogation was illegal because Amanda did not have an attorney present. Because the civil trial ran concurrently, the jury heard the damaging details anyway.
Add the fact that the civil trial gave Carlo Pacelli several opportunities to smear Amanda in court, telling the jury that she was an actress crying crocodile tears. There is no doubt that this was damaging to Amanda. Were the statements showing Amanda accusing an innocent man, along with the vicious attacks on Amanda’s character made by Pacelli, enough to sway the jury to believe in guilt?
I cannot say for sure if Lumumba’s actions caused the wrongful convictions but I can say that Lumumba’s behavior has been reprehensible. He knows how the system in Perugia works. He was taken out of his home in the middle of the night and beaten by the same police force that he has now befriended, all in the pursuit of money. I honestly do not know how Lumumba sleeps at night knowing what he has done.
Patrick Lumumba Photographed by Joseph Bishop in Perugia, Italy
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The Victim
Meredith's Killer
Wrongfully Convicted
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