Knox appeal to resume as prosecution bids to refute prisoner’s claims

American student Amanda Knox’s appeals trial resumes today with testimony from an African man also convicted in the slaying of Knox’s roommate in Perugia.

Rudy Hermann Guede is serving a 16-year-prison sentence for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a Leeds university student who was stabbed to death in the apartment she shared with Knox.

Knox and her co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, are appealing against their murder convictions.

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Guede, from the Ivory Coast, who sought a fast-track procedure, was tried separately and has already exhausted all levels of appeals, with Italy’s top criminal court upholding his conviction.

He will testify for the prosecution before the appeals court at the opening of Monday’s hearing, lawyers say.

Guede, 24, was called by the prosecution to counter testimony by a fellow inmate who testified for the defence and claimed he had information clearing Knox and Sollecito.

Convicted child killer Mario Alessi told the court that Guede had confided in him during recreation time at the Viterbo prison that Knox and Sollecito had nothing to do with the killing.

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Guede in the past has denied talking to Alessi about the case, and he is expected to repeat that when he takes the stand. His lawyer Valter Biscotti stressed that Guede’s testimony was admitted in reference to that particular claim, and might be limited to that alone. But he said the presiding judge has some leeway to allow some broader questioning.

“He’s got nothing to hide and nothing to be afraid of,” Mr Biscotti said of his client.

However, when Guede took the stand during the pair’s first trial, he declined to answer prosecutors’ questions or offer any spontaneous testimony.

Knox and Sollecito have been convicted of sexual assault and murder. She was sentenced to 26 years in prison, he to 25.

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Like Knox and Sollecito, Guede has denied killing Miss Kercher. But unlike them, he has admitted being at the crime scene on November 1, 2007 and claimed that he had heard Miss Kercher and Knox arguing before she died.

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