Fugitive held in Italian stabbing of UK student appears in court
BERLIN - A fugitive wanted in the sex slaying of a British college student in Italy was brought before a German court Wednesday to determine whether there is enough evidence to keep him in custody, authorities said.
Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, is wanted in connection with the sexual assault and fatal stabbing of Meredith Kercher, 21, found dead Nov. 2 in the house she shared with University of Washington student Amanda Marie Knox.
Knox and her Italian boyfriend remained jailed Wednesday in the central Italian city of Perugia. Both have denied any wrongdoing.
Kercher - found on the floor near her bed in her blood-splattered bedroom, half-naked, with one foot sticking out from under the bedcovers - likely died from a stab wound to her neck, an autopsy showed.
Italian authorities have said they found Knox’s DNA on the handle of a knife believed to have been the murder weapon and Kercher’s DNA on the blade. The knife came from the kitchen of a house where Knox’s boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, lived in Perugia.
An international search for Guede was launched after bloody fingerprints were found on Kercher’s pillow and on toilet paper in the house. The prints did not match those of Knox or Sollecito.
Guede, an Italian resident who is a native of the Ivory Coast, was stopped in Mainz, Germany, on Tuesday for riding a train without a ticket.
He was brought before a judge on Wednesday, but the result of the hearing was not immediately known, prosecutor’s spokesman Karl-Rudolf Winkler said.
So long as the detention is upheld - which is usual - prosecutors will ask for him to be held pending extradition to Italy.
Winkler said he did not know whether Guede made any statements about the allegations against him. He said German authorities were concentrating strictly on his extradition, rather than the crime investigation.