An appeals court in Florence Tuesday rejected a bid for a new trial and possible acquittal by the only person convicted of the 2007 murder of British university student Meredith Kercher.
Rudy Hermann Guede, an Ivorian, is serving a 16-year sentence for the murder of Kercher, found stabbed in her bedroom in a house she shared in Perugia with American student Amanda Knox. Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, after flip-flop verdicts of convictions and acquittal, were ultimately exonerated of the murder by Italy’s top criminal tribunal, the Court of Cassation.
Guede was in court for the court’s decision, after an hour’s deliberation.
When the Cassation court upheld Guede’s conviction in 2010, it ruled he didn’t act alone but didn’t name any accomplices. His lawyers argued that conclusion conflicts with the Knox and Sollecito acquittals.
