Amanda Knox Admits She Struggles with Guilt for Accusing Patrick Lumumba of Meredith Kercher Murder

Amanda Knox has said she struggles with guilt for falsely accusing Congolese barman Patrick Lumumba of murdering British student Meredith Kercher.

At the time of the initial investigation into the 2007 murder, the 26-year-old told police she had "covered her ears as he killed" the student in the bedroom of the house she shared with Kercher in Italy.

Lumumba was dragged from his home in front of his children and wife in a dawn raid and taken to jail, where he was held in custody for two weeks, as a direct result of Knox's accusation.

He was finally released after a university professor provided an alibi to account for his whereabouts on the night of the murder.

In an interview with The Guardian, Knox admitted that she has "really struggled with what happened with Patrick."

Asked if she could understand why he hated her, she replied: "Yes, Patrick was greatly hurt by what happened and never got answers from me.

"Granted, I was in a position where I couldn't give answers. But if you read what I said after my interrogations, I said I could not testify against him, and yet his lawyer continues to say I was going to let him languish in prison..."

Knox claims she made the false confession implicating Lumumba, as a result of threats from police and the mental strain caused by their interrogations.

Recalling the moment she accused him she said: "When I named Patrick, I just started weeping. I thought, 'Oh my God, it must be true what they're (the police) saying. I must have witnessed my friend's murder somehow and now I'm traumatised enough to not even remember it.'"

Knox was convicted of slandering Lumumba and ordered to pay him 22,000 Euros in 2011. He was also later awarded 8,000 Euros in damages by the Italian state, but he rejected this to pursue a claim through the European Court of Human Rights.

In 2007 Knox and Raffalle Sollecito were charged with murdering and sexually assaulting Meredith, after she was found semi-naked and with her throat cut in the bedroom of her house in Perugia.

They were convicted in 2009 and Knox was sentenced to 26 years and Sollecito to 25 years, but in 2011, after an appeal the verdicts were overturned and both were allowed to go free.

Italy's Supreme Court ordered a fresh retrial of the appeal and the pair were re-convicted last month.

Describing her devastation at the verdict she said it felt like "being hit by a train."

She added that she felt stranded and trapped by the verdict that had cemented her reputation as a criminal in the eyes of the public.

The student expressed her determination to convince the Kercher family of her innocence, although she admitted it was a "really big rock to overturn."

Before the re-trial she had sent an eight page letter to the court pleading her innocence, however this was deemed inadmissable.

Knox is trying to build a new life back in America with boyfriend James Terrano and added that she was trying to stay positive about her future

Knox and Sollecito were this week given a lifeline when it emerged the judge who convicted her of the crime for a second time may have breached legal rules.