Meredith Kercher’s killer has been released after serving 13 years
The man convicted of murdering British student Meredith Kercher has been released from prison early in Italy. Rudy Guede served 13 years for killing the Leeds University student who was studying in Perugia in 2007.
Italian immigrant Guede, who fled to Germany after the murder, was originally sentenced to 30 years at a 2008 trial in which it was revealed that his DNA and bloodied handprint were found at the scene. But his term was reduced to 16 years on appeal in 2009. Despite always denying the murder, Guede admitted in court that he was in the house on the night of Meredith’s death.
Since last December, he has been serving the remainder of his sentence as community service in the Italian town of Viterbo, Italian outlet La Stampa reports. But this week a judge there agreed to release him from prison early on good behaviour.
“It will be another aspect I need to explain to Meredith’s family,” Kercher’s family lawyer Francesco Maresca told Italian media. “Each time, beyond the legitimacy, it further renews their unspeakable suffering.”
The road to justice for the family of Meredith Kercher has been a twisted one. The 21-year-old student from Coulsdon, Surrey, was murdered and sexually assaulted at the student flat she shared in Perugia with US student Amanda Knox and Italian Raffaele Sollecito on November 1, 2007. Meredith's throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
Knox and Sollecito spent a total of four years in prison for Kercher’s murder before their convictions were jointly overturned in March 2015. Knox was originally given 26 years and Sollecito 25, but they were freed on appeal in October 2011. Then, in a shocking twist, they were found guilty for a second time by an Italian jury three years later, in 2014. Finally, the following year, the Supreme Court of Cassation definitively overturned the convictions.
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