Meredith Kercher’s killer has been accused of beating his ex-girlfriend – six months after he was released from an Italian prison for the murder of the British university student.
Rudy Guede, 36, of Ivory Coast, was released from prison in June after serving 13 years for the gruesome murder and sexual assault of 21-year-old Kercher in November 2007 in Perugia, Italy.
Kercher was found half-naked and with her throat slit in the bedroom of her home in the mountain town – just weeks after she arrived for a year abroad to study at Leeds University.
Guede was originally sentenced to 30 years in prison for her murder, but this was later reduced to 18 years. With good behavior, he was paroled in 2021 and given a job at a local library in Viterbo, where he now lives.
He was released from prison in June, but it has now emerged that he is accused of attacking his 23-year-old ex-girlfriend.
Until his trial, a local prosecutor has allowed him to wear an electronic tag and move no further than 500 meters from his partner. The public prosecutor’s office had requested the measure of house arrest.
Raffaele Sollecito, who was acquitted of the Briton’s murder along with his then-girlfriend Amanda Knox, said: “It seems Guede hasn’t changed” after he was charged with assaulting his girlfriend.
Ivory Coast drifter Rudy Guede, 36 (pictured in 2016), was released from prison in June after serving 13 years for the brutal murder of Meredith – although he always denied any involvement
Ivory Coast’s Rudy Guede, 36, was released from prison in June after serving 13 years for the gruesome murder and sexual assault of 21-year-old Kercher (pictured) in Perugia, Italy, in November 2007
Raffaele Sollecito (pictured), who was acquitted along with Amanda Knox of the Brit’s murder, said: “It seems Guede hasn’t changed” after he was charged with assaulting his girlfriend
Amanda Knox speaks to the media during a brief press conference outside her parents’ home on March 27, 2015 in Seattle, Washington
“I don’t follow Guede’s life, but given what happened today, it seems to me that he hasn’t changed,” Sollecito told La Stampa.
“What he was before he went to prison, what we read in the documents, is sadly reconfirmed and is just as sad.” “We see that he has not repented,” Sollecito added.
Guede was convicted in 2008 for the murder in which Kercher’s American roommate Amanda Knox was also sent to prison, but was then sensationally acquitted along with her then Italian boyfriend Sollecito.
Guede was found guilty after his DNA was discovered on Kercher’s body, although he claimed he was in the bathroom listening to music when she was killed.
He was paroled in 2021 for good behavior in prison and lives in the city of Viterbo, where he works as a researcher and librarian at the Center for Criminal, Justice and Sociological Studies.
He also completed a master’s degree in history at the University of Rome Tre.
After his release from prison, Guede said: “The sentence I had to serve in the name of the law is over. “Now I am marked by the judgment of strangers, by the strange looks when I walk past.”
But Guede has now been charged with assaulting his 23-year-old ex-girlfriend – six months after he was officially released from prison for Kercher’s murder.
Kercher, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was killed just two months after moving to Italy to study abroad at the prestigious University of Perugia.
Her body was found partially undressed in her bedroom and had 47 stab wounds.
Guede’s fingerprints and a bloody handprint of his were found at the crime scene.
He admitted to being in the apartment but always denied killing or sexually assaulting Kercher.
He said he went into a “state of shock” after finding her dead after returning from the bathroom.
After the murder, Guede fled by train to Germany, where he was arrested days later.
Guede has since told Kercher’s parents in a letter that his hands were stained with her blood because he tried to save the British student.
Pictured: Rudy Guede was recently spotted at a daytime release in Italy in 2021
– Rudy Guede (left) is greeted by an unknown person as he leaves prison for a temporary release of 36 hours in Viterbo, Italy, on June 25, 2016
Kercher, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was killed just two months after moving to Italy to study abroad at the prestigious University of Perugia (pictured: in an undated photo published in November 2007).
Knox and Sollecito each spent four years in prison after their conviction. Knox was also convicted of libel for falsely accusing Patrick Lumumba, a bar owner, of murder. Pictured: Knox and Sollecito in 2007
Knox will be escorted into court on September 26, 2008
“If my hands are stained with blood, it is because I tried to save Meredith,” Guede wrote in the letter, according to La Repubblica.
“The fear took over me and I ran away like a coward, perhaps leaving Mez alive. ‘I will never stop regretting this.’
Guede was charged with her murder and sexual assault and sentenced to 30 years in prison, which was later reduced to 16 years by an appeals court.
Meanwhile, Knox and Sollecito each spent four years in prison after being convicted of Kercher’s murder. Knox was also convicted of libel for falsely accusing Patrick Lumumba, a bar owner, of murder.
Lumumba spent two weeks in prison and was only released when someone provided an alibi.
Knox was the one who first called the police after discovering that Kercher’s bedroom door was locked and blood was found in the bathroom. However, when law enforcement noticed she was behaving strangely, she became a suspect.
After extensive investigations and trials, then 20-year-old Amanda and her boyfriend Raffaele were convicted of the crime in 2009 – and she was sentenced to 26 years in prison for fake burglary, defamation, sexual violence and murder.
Knox and Sollecito were acquitted in 2011 after the evidence used against the pair was found to be flawed.
Knox immediately returned to the United States and maintained her innocence, but in January 2014 the Italian courts overturned that acquittal and reinstated the guilty verdict.
The appeals court ruled that the injuries inflicted on Kercher’s body could not have been caused by Guede alone.
However, in 2015, Italy’s highest court overturned the decision in a final ruling, saying the convictions of Knox and Sollecito were the result of “staggering deficiencies” in the investigation.
Guede remains the only person in prison for the brutal murder of the British student.