Killer Of Murdered UK Student Kercher Freed In Italy
Sumaira FH Published November 23, 2021 | 07:39 PM
The only person convicted of killing British student Meredith Kercher in Italy is free, granted early release 14 years after the grisly murder that became a global saga, his lawyer said Tuesday
Rome, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Nov, 2021 ) :The only person convicted of killing British student Meredith Kercher in Italy is free, granted early release 14 years after the grisly murder that became a global saga, his lawyer said Tuesday.
Ivorian Rudy Guede was convicted in 2008 for the murder the previous year that also saw Kercher's American flatmate, Amanda Knox, jailed but then sensationally acquitted alongside her Italian boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito.
"Rudy Guede was released at the end of his sentence," his lawyer Fabrizio Ballarini said in a statement to AFP.
He said a magistrate in Viterbo, a city north of Rome where Guede had been in prison, had granted the inmate early release and the order had been signed by the Milan prosecutor's office.
The half-naked body of Kercher was found in November 2007 in a pool of blood in the cottage she shared with Knox in the town of Perugia, central Italy.
The 21-year-old's throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
Guede, who was linked to the murder scene by DNA evidence, was arrested in Germany a few weeks later and, following a fast-track trial in Italy, was sentenced in October 2008 to 30 years for murder and sexual assault.
His sentence was later reduced to 16 years on appeal, and he tried unsuccessfully to have it reviewed following the acquittals of Knox and Sollecito.
Knox, a 20-year-old student from Seattle at the time of the murder, served four years of a 26-year sentence before she was acquitted twice, first in 2011 then again in 2015 after a retrial.
She became the focus of frenzied media attention in Britain and the United States over the trial, in which prosecutors painted the murder as a drug-fuelled sex game gone awry.
Sollecito, who was 23 at the time of the killing and had only been dating Knox for a week, was also acquitted both in 2011 and in 2015.
Guede had already been transferred to the care of social services before his formal release, his lawyer said.
Italian news agency ANSA said this arrangement began last December.
Professor Claudio Mariani, who teaches at the Centre for the Study of Criminology in Viterbo, told ANSA that Guede had volunteered at the charity Caritas and worked in the centre's library.
Related Topics
Recent Stories
HEC reviews curricula for environmental sciences degree programme
ICC Asia looking forward to an action-packed Asia Cricket Week
Yuvraj Singh named ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 Ambassador
Greece hands Olympic flame to 2024 Paris Games hosts
Two Kyiv hospitals evacuating over feared Russian strikes
World must act on neurotech revolution, say experts
Charles & Catherine's cancer diagnoses
Champions Alcaraz and Sabalenka through in Madrid Open
King Charles to resume some public duties during cancer treatment: palace
US defense chief announces $6 bn in security aid for Ukraine
Heavy rains cause damage to Spezand-Taftan railway track
Woman stabbed in Israel, attacker killed: police
More Stories From World
-
Taiwan hit by several quakes, strongest reaching 6.1-magnitude
16 minutes ago -
'Ballistic' Bairstow stars as Punjab pull off record T20 chase
16 minutes ago -
Tennis: ATP/WTA Madrid Open results - 2nd update
16 minutes ago -
Junta-led Burkina Faso suspends BBC, Voice of America for two weeks
1 hour ago -
Two Kyiv hospitals evacuating over feared Russian strikes
2 hours ago -
World must act on neurotech revolution, say experts
2 hours ago
-
Charles & Catherine's cancer diagnoses
2 hours ago -
King Charles to resume some public duties during cancer treatment: palace
2 hours ago -
US defense chief announces $6 bn in security aid for Ukraine
2 hours ago -
Woman stabbed in Israel, attacker killed: police
2 hours ago -
Israeli-fired unexploded bombs could take 14 years to clear: UN
2 hours ago -
US announces $6 bn in security aid for Ukraine
2 hours ago