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PERUGIA - A group of people actively participated in the murder of a British exchange student in Italy, found dead last month with her throat slashed, a judge wrote in a document released on Wednesday.
Three suspects are being held for the November 2 murder of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, including her American flatmate, Amanda Knox and Knox's boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.
The third suspect, Rudy Hermann Guede, was extradited back to Italy on December 6 after fleeing to Germany after the murder.
Investigators suspect all three may have been involved in the killing and say they have evidence that all three were in Kercher's flat the night she was murdered.
Judge Maurizio Bufali wrote in a document confirming Guede's arrest that his testimony - in which he claimed to have scuffled with an unidentified killer just after Kercher was stabbed - was "full of decisive falsehoods".
The judge said the investigation had found "the presence of more people in that house at the moment in which Meredith was killed, and the quick departure of all of them after the tragic conclusion of the evening".
"(There was) a group participation in the heinous crime in which a passive role does not appear plausible for any of those present," he wrote.
All three suspects deny involvement but investigators have pounced upon apparent contradictions in their testimonies.
Bufali wrote that investigators had not yet established the motive for the killing, although they had put forward the possibility of sexual assault.
The case has resonated around Europe, where thousands of young people like Kercher study under the Erasmus exchange programme. Perugia is a choice destination for such students.
- REUTERS
