An innocent Congolese bar owner who was detained in connection with the murder of British exchange student Meredith Kercher was awarded 8,000 euros for unjust imprisonment by a Perugia appeals court Monday.
Patrick Lumumba had asked the court for 516,000 euros in damages and his lawyer, Carlo Pacelli, described the sum awarded Monday as ''miserable''.
''There has been no recognition of damage to his property or health, and the damage to his image has not been adequately valued,'' Pacelli said in a statement, announcing that his client would appeal to Italy's supreme court.
Lumumba, 38, was arrested on November 6, 2007 on testimony from another suspect in the case, Kercher's 21-year-old American flatmate Amanda Knox, who fingered the pub operator and musician as the killer.
He was released after 14 days in jail after an alibi confirmed he had been working in his city-centre pub on the night Kercher was killed and police failed to find any forensic evidence linking him with the crime scene.
Earlier this month the court heard how father-of-two Lumumba, who had no previous criminal record, was now unemployed after economic difficulties forced him to shut his pub, which had been closed by police during the first phase of their murder investigation.
Lumumba also claimed to have suffered psychological consequences from his arrest.
''The crime that led to (Lumumba's) arrest is notorious for its exceptional media coverage, and this has certainly affected (him) more deeply that the normal negative consequences of unjust imprisonment,'' Pacelli said in his statement Monday.
He stressed that Lumumba's request for damages was ''not merely an 'economic' protest, but (an expression) in monetary terms of his profound indignation over what was and continues to be a stigmatising, tragic and extremely sad affair on a human, personal and family level''.
Knox, who later withdrew her testimony against Lumumba, is currently on trial for Kercher's murder with her 24-year-old Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
Lumumba is suing Knox for defamation as part of the trial.
Kercher, 21, was found semi-naked and with her throat slashed on November 2, 2007 in the house she shared with Seattle-born Knox and two other Italian women in Perugia.
In October a third defendant, 21-year-old Ivory Coast national Rudy Guede, was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years for sexually assaulting and murdering the British exchange student.
The prosecution claims Kercher was killed when all three suspects tried to force her to participate in ''a perverse group sex game''.
The defendants deny the charges.
