Two convicted Italian criminals have testified that American citizen Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend are innocent in the 2007 murder of a young British woman In Italy.
Mario Alessi, serving a sentence for kidnapping and killing a child, told an appeals court in Italy Saturday that a friend of co-defendant Rudy Herman Guede had killed Meredith Kercher to silence her after she resisted a sexual assault. Ivorian-born Guede is serving a 16-year sentence for his role in Kercher's murder. Alessi said Guede had spoken to him about the murder at Viterbo prison where they shared a cell.
Guede has denied ever having made such statements.
Also Saturday, Luciano Aviello, who is serving a prison sentence for his association with an organized crime group in Naples, testified that his own brother killed the 21-year old Briton during an attempted theft.
Knox was sentenced in December 2009 to 26 years in prison for the murder of Kercher with whom she shared a house in the Italian university town Perugia.
Raffaele Sollecito, who was Knox's boyfriend at the time, was sentenced to 25 years in connection with the case. Both have denied any part in the crime and are appealing their convictions.
Guede is scheduled to testify in Knox's and Sollecito's appeals on June 27.
Prosecutors said Kercher was killed when a sex game turned violent on the night of November 1, 2007.
Kercher was found in a Perugia house she shared with Knox in a pool of blood with multiple stab wounds in the neck.
Guede was convicted in 2008 and sentenced initially to 30 years in jail, but the appeal court later reduced his term.