Verdict expected in Kercher murder trial

| Tue, 10/28/2008 - 04:42

Ivory Coast national Rudy Guede, who is accused of murdering British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia last November, is expected to be sentenced on Tuesday.

Prosecutors have asked for a life sentence for Guede, 21, who opted for a fast-track trial so that he would not be tried alongside two other suspects in the case, Kercher's American flatmate Amanda Knox and Knox's Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.

Summing up on Monday, Giuliano Mignini repeated the prosecution's belief that 22-year-old Kercher, who was found semi-naked in her bedroom with her throat slashed on November 2, was killed when Guede, Knox and Sollecito tried to force her to participate in ''a perverse group sex game''.

In Mignini's reconstruction of events, Sollecito and Guede held Kercher's arms while Knox slashed her throat with a kitchen knife.

The public prosecutor said Guede had also tried to rape Kercher.

But Guede's lawyers claim that the crime was carried out by Knox, 21, and Sollecito, 24, alone.

Guede has always admitted to being in the house on the night of the murder but says he was in the bathroom when Kercher was murdered.

Judge Paolo Michele is also expected to decide on Tuesday whether there is sufficient evidence to send Knox and Sollecito to full trial.

Both suspects' defence teams claim their clients were not in the house and that the crime was committed by a single attacker.

Prosecutors on Monday refuted arguments from Sollecito's lawyers that a key piece of evidence was inadmissible.

Sollecito's DNA was found on a bra clasp belonging to the victim, but his defence team argued that the DNA was contaminated after the clasp lay on the floor for two weeks before police took it in for tests.

They have also claimed it would have been impossible for Sollecito to cut through the student's bra without also touching the fabric of the bra, on which no trace of his DNA was found.

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