A preliminary investigations judge in
Viterbo on Wednesday issued a restraining order against Rudy
Guede, the 36-year-old Ivorian national convicted of murdering
British exchange student Meredith Kercher in Perugia in 2007,
for allegedly abusing his former girlfriend, aged 20.
Investigators are reportedly probing the crimes of personal
injury, ill-treatment and violence.
Prosecutors had reportedly asked for Guede, who was released
from jail in November 2021 after serving 13 years of a
16-year-term for the November 1, 2007 murder of the Leeds
University student in the Perugia flat she shared with American
Amanda Knox, to be placed under house arrest.
However, the judge ruled that a ban on approaching within 500
metres of the victim and an electronic bracelet was sufficient.
Guede is the only person definitively convicted of killing
Kercher in the Umbrian capital after the Italian supreme court
acquitted two other former suspects, Knox and her Italian
ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, overturning an earlier
conviction.
The Ivorian, who has maintained his innocence, made an
unsuccessful bid for his case to be reviewed after Knox and
Sollecito were cleared.
Guede's DNA was found inside Kercher and all over the murder
scene.
Knox and Sollecito's initial conviction was based on DNA
evidence that was later ruled unsafe, leading to their final
acquittal.
Guede said he went into a "state of shock" after finding Kercher
dead following a visit to the bathroom after meeting her on the
night she was killed.
He fled the country and was arrested in Germany a few days after
the murder.
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