Rudy Guede, only convicted killer of murdered UK student Meredith Kercher, freed in Italy
- Initially sentenced to 30 years, reduced on appeal to 16 years, he was due to be released in January 2022 but granted early release
- Two other defendants, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, were both acquitted twice, in 2011 and 2015
Ivorian Rudy Guede was convicted in 2008 for the murder the previous year that also saw Kercher’s American flatmate, Amanda Knox, jailed but then sensationally acquitted alongside her Italian boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito.
“Rudy Guede was released at the end of his sentence,” his lawyer Fabrizio Ballarini said.
He said a magistrate in Viterbo, a city north of Rome where Guede had been in prison, had granted the inmate early release and the order had been signed by the Milan prosecutor’s office. Guede had been due to be freed in January.
The half-naked body of Kercher was found in November 2007 in a pool of blood in the cottage she shared with Knox in the town of Perugia, central Italy.
The 21-year-old’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
Guede, who was linked to the murder scene by DNA evidence, was arrested in Germany a few weeks later and, following a fast track trial in Italy, was sentenced in October 2008 to 30 years for murder and sexual assault.