Court rejects new trial in Kercher murder
An Italian appeals court has rejected a bid for a new trial for the only person convicted of the 2007 murder of British university student Meredith Kercher.
Rudy Hermann Guede, from the Ivory Coast, is serving a 16-year sentence for the murder of Kercher, found stabbed in her bedroom in a house she shared in Perugia with American student Amanda Knox.
Knox and her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, after being first convicted then acquitted, were ultimately exonerated of the murder by Italy's top criminal tribunal, the Court of Cassation.
When the Cassation court upheld Guede's conviction in 2010, it ruled he didn't act alone but didn't name any accomplices.
His lawyers argued that conclusion conflicts with the Knox and Sollecito acquittals.
The Florence court didn't elaborate on why it rejected Guede's bid.
Guede, who has denied killing Kercher, was initially sentenced to 30 years in prison, reduced on a previous appeal to 16 years.
In a case closely followed in the United States, Knox and Sollecito steadfastly proclaimed their innocence.
Their judicial saga included time in prison following convictions, and release after an acquittal, before being definitively acquitted of the murder in 2015.
