Patrick Lumumba

Who is Patrick Lumumba? Lumumba is a Kenyan born business man who owns "Le Chic" a club in the town where Amanda Knox lived. She worked for him briefly, and falsely implicated him during her confession to investigators during her interrogation.

Her explanation for this, in her own words, can be found here. As a father, I found this a little gut wrenching to listen to, so be warned.

It's also been said that Knox expressed little remorse for this. Once again, simply untrue. Knox, an avid writer, kept a journal of her experiences in prison (more on the infamous "diary" in another article). While the wisdom of even keeping such a journal is questionable, as a writer myself, I can certainly understand why she did it.

In the journal she writes:

On Nov. 25 she says, "Why would I be in here for 20 years if I am, in reality, completely innocent? The only thing I screwed up on was when I said I saw Patrick, but I never said his name with any sort of malicious intent behind it. I only said it to say something. I was trying so hard to know something, and I know what I said was wrong, which is why I'm telling the truth, that I've remembered, now."

On Nov. 29, shortly before the diary was seized, she returns to this topic.

"I'm so sorry for all this confusion and in particular for what I did to Patrick. I'm happy that he has been set free."

She also publicly expressed remorse for implicating Lumumba:

At the Nov. 30 court hearing Knox burst into tears when asked why she had accused Patrick, her former employer at Le Chic.

Says the Times of London: "Ms. Knox told the judge that she was sorry for the trouble that she had caused Diya Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner for whom she worked part time, by falsely claiming that he had had sex with Ms Kercher before murdering her. 'I am sorry for Patrick and for the whole situation,'" she said.

Why did she implicate him in the first place?

Give a listen to the link above, and that lays it out pretty plainly. After hours of interrogation, after being threatened with life in prison, and told that investigators had proof she had met with Lamumba the night of the murder she included him in her "imagined" version of the crime. Note, that it was the investigators who first brought up Lamumba, NOT Knox.

Investigators failed to record any of this, and this confession was not used in court, but many site this as evidence as proof of Knox's guilt. The fact that the confession is not accurate seems to me to indicate that it was a false confession obtained under duress in an attempt to placate the interrogators.