POLICE are looking at a possible new suspect in the infamous murder of British student Meredith Kercher.
The person in question fled Italy in the days after the 21-year-old was murdered in Perugia – 18 years ago today in 2007 – according to case’s former prosecutor.
Giuliano Mignini, who led the original investigation, has put forward the name of a new suspect, according to La Stampa.
He told the paper: “There are indications that this person may be implicated. It’s someone I’ve never considered before.”
No decision has been reached over whether to formally reopen the investigation.
Meredith, from London, had her throat slashed in the Italian villa she shared with Amanda Knox in Perugia – where was was on exchange from thje University of Leeds.
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Rudy Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was convicted in 2008 of murdering and sexually assaulting her after his DNA was found at the scene.
He was released from prison in 2021 after serving 13 years of a 16-year term.
Amanda Knox, Meredith’s American roommate, was also convicted of murder alongside with her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito – but later fully exonerated.
In a dramatic saga, the pair were acquitted in 2011, convicted again in a 2014 retrial, and then definitively cleared in 2015.
Each of them spent around four years behind bars before being fully acquitted.
Know said last year she had been “unjustly accuse for 17 years” and had not killed anyone.
She was also convicted of slander against her former boss, Patrick Lumumba, for wrongly accusing him of murder – and this was upheld earlier this year.
The Congolese man owned a bar where Knox, then a university student, had worked part-time.
He was arrested and spent two weeks in jail before being released after Knox said in a police interview he was to blame.
Guede is due to stand trial this month for separate charges of sexual assault against his former girlfriend.
He began dating a woman while in prison, until she ended the relationship in 2023 and pressed charges.
The case hit the headlines again this summer when a new eight-part drama series charting Amanda Knox’s journey through the courts.
It explores the drawn-out process of finding the truth, and the frenzy of public speculation which surrounded the case.
In March this year, Knox urged Meredith’s grieving family to buy her new book – sparking accusations she is profiting off the tragedy.
Her new memoir, Free, is all about her treatment while in jail.
In the book, she claims to have been groped, and asked for sex by prison guards.
When asked about the impact the book may have on her former roommate’s family, Knox urged them to read it.
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She said: “I hope that they read my book because I really honour Meredith’s memory in the book but I also believe that honouring her past and story does not mean erasing my own.
“I am a person who is continuing to pursue justice in this case but a bigger issue that I try and speak to and free is how do we all overcome the traumas that are in our lives, regardless of whether or not we get what we deserve.”