Suspects blame each other in Kercher murder case

Murder accused Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, charged with the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, were at the crime scene on the night of the killing, a lawyer for a third suspect said today.

American Knox, 21, and her former Italian lover Sollecito, 24, have both said they were not there when the Leeds University exchange student’s throat was slit in Perugia, Italy, last November.

But as the closing speech for the defence of Ivorian Rudy Hermann Guede, 21, got underway today, it became apparent that all three suspects were pointing the finger at each other.

The semi-naked body of Miss Kercher, 21, from Coulsdon, Surrey in England, was found on November 2 in the room she was staying in on her year abroad in the Umbrian hilltop town.

The three suspects have been accused of killing her in a bungled sex game.

Lawyers for her housemate Knox and Sollecito have both said this week they believed the murder was committed by a lone killer.

But it was easy for them to attack Guede and predictable they would try and pin the blame on him, his lawyer Valter Biscotti said.

“We expected this to happen and now it’s happening,” he told reporters during a break from the closed hearing in Perugia.

“Just because Rudy was at the scene of the crime it doesn’t make him guilty. He has not changed his story about what happened that night and we showed in court this morning that there was no proof linking him to the crime.”

Guede saw and heard Knox at the scene of the crime, he said, and he also saw a man he believed to be Sollecito although he did not recognise him.

“We think the pair probably came back to the house to clean up afterwards because there was found to be blood diluted with water,” he said.

Guede himself did not speak in court, his lawyer added.

The versions of events described by Knox’s and Sollecito’s lawyers and the prosecutor were fantasies, according to another lawyer for Guede, Nicodemo Gentile.

Guede has admitted to being in the house on the night Miss Kercher was murdered but, like his fellow suspects, denies any wrongdoing. He is currently being tried in a fast-track process, which he requested because he feared a pact between the former lovers to frame him.

Judge Paolo Micheli will decide early next week whether to convict or acquit him. He will decide at the same time whether Knox and Sollecito should stand trial.

Sollecito’s lawyers argued at a pre-trial hearing yesterday that he could not have been involved in the murder because he was downloading a cartoon at home at the time.

His lawyer Giulia Bongiorno said: “Raffaele was using an interactive cartoon website between 9pm and 9.45pm that night. Analysis of the phone calls made from Meredith’s phone show that she must have been killed between 9pm and 10pm. Raffaele would not have had time to get to her house.”

She said the evidence indicated there was just one murderer, whose trail was left by a piece of broken glass they trod on and which got stuck to their shoe and made marks on the floor.

Sollecito’s legal team launched their defence using video and audio material as well as a mannequin to reconstruct the way in which Miss Kercher’s bra could have been unfastened.

They argued it could not be proved that DNA found on Miss Kercher’s bra strap was Sollecito’s.

Miss Kercher’s family is seeking €25m in compensation for the “grave tragedy” they have suffered, their lawyer Francesco Maresca said earlier this week.

While the claim currently applies only to Guede, Mr Maresca said he would make a similar request if Knox and Sollecito were brought to trial.

But Mr Maresca stressed the amount applied to all three cases collectively, calling it “symbolic request”.