Footprint ‘wrongly attributed’ in murder case

A BLOODY footprint found at the house where a British student was killed in Italy was wrongly attributed to one of the defendants in the case, a forensic expert testified at the murder trial yesterday.

The footprint was found on a bathroom rug in the house in Perugia where Meredith Kercher was killed in November 2007. Prosecutors have attributed it to Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian who is on trial on murder charges with Amanda Knox, his girlfriend at the time.

Both defendants deny wrongdoing.

In his testimony, expert Francesco Vinci compared detailed pictures of the footprint on the rug with images of Sollecito’s feet, arguing that the sizes and shapes “absolutely don’t match”.

“Differences, one by one, can be seen,” said Vinci, who is a witness for Sollecito’s defence.

According to Vinci, the footprint is “compatible” with the foot of a third man, Rudy Hermann Guede, who was convicted in a separate trial last year and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Guede, of the Ivory Coast, denies wrongdoing and has appealed his conviction.

The expert said he took part in one of the crime scene investigations by forensics at the house of the murder when the evidence was being collected.

Knox and Sollecito, who were both in court yesterday, face life sentences if convicted.

Prosecutors allege that Kercher was killed during what had begun as a sex game. Her body was found in her bedroom in the apartment she shared with Knox on November 2, 2007.