New testimony offered in Knox murder case

ROME – A convict has offered new testimony in the murder case of American student Amanda Knox, according to the lawyer for Knox’s former boyfriend.

Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted of killing Meredith Kercher, a 21-year Briton who was Knox’s roommate. All were studying in Perugia, a small university town in central Italy.

Rudy Hermann Guede of the Ivory Coast was convicted in separate proceedings. All three have denied wrongdoing.

Mario Alessi, a convicted murderer who was held in the same ward of the Viterbo prison as Guede, volunteered new information and held talks in prison with Sollecito’s defense team on Feb. 20, Sollecito’s lawyer Luca Maori told the Associated Press.

Maori said the testimony, which was filmed, had been passed on to prosecutors in Perugia.

The newspaper Corriere della Sera and other Italian media reported that Alessi had said Guede told him that Knox and Sollecito were not at the crime scene the night of the murder and had nothing to do with it.

Guede’s lawyers told the AP their client never talked to Alessi about the case. A lawyer for the Kercher family, Enzo Maresca, dismissed the testimony as “groundless.”

Knox and Sollecito are appealing their convictions.