By Paolo Chiriatti
ROME (Reuters) -Italy's highest court will decide on Thursday whether to uphold the conviction of American Amanda Knox for slander in a case related to the murder of her British flatmate in 2007, the final act in a legal drama lasting almost two decades.
An appeals court in Florence last year handed Knox a three-year sentence for wrongly accusing Congolese bar owner Patrick Lumumba of killing Meredith (NYSE:MDP) Kercher in the city of Perugia.
The court in Rome is expected to deliver its verdict on Thursday evening, legal sources said.
Knox, who spent four years in jail for the killing of Kercher before the conviction was annulled in 2015, is aiming to clear her name in the last legal case against her over the affair.
Lawyers for Knox, 37, said she would not attend the session in Rome on Thursday, having stayed in the United States with her family.
"It doesn't get easier, no matter how many times I've been through this," Knox said in a series of posts on X.
"I am not a liar. I am not a slanderer."
Lumumba, who was held for two weeks in 2007 before he was freed, told reporters outside the court that he hoped the conviction would be upheld.
"I believe in Italian justice. I believe Amanda did wrong and slandered me... she never apologised to me," he said.
The sentence had no practical impact as it was covered by the time Knox spent in prison.
The stabbing of 21-year-old Kercher and multiple trials provided fodder for tabloids on both sides of the Atlantic and inspired books and films.
Rudy Guede, originally from the Ivory Coast, was sentenced to 16 years in jail for the killing of Kercher, in a ruling that said he acted with unnamed other culprits. He was granted early release in 2021.