KEY POINTS:
LONDON - The body of British student Meredith Kercher, murdered in the Italian city of Perugia on November 2, was flown back to Britain yesterday while Italian police pressed on with their investigation.
Kercher, 21, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was found in the flat she shared with an American, lying under a duvet in her bedroom with a deep cut to the throat.
A judge on Friday ordered three suspects, including Kercher's flatmate, to be kept in custody.
Police suspect a sexual motive and Italian and British newspapers have speculated that Kercher, on a year's study trip from Leeds University, was killed when she refused to have sex with her assailant.
The body was flown to London's Heathrow Airport on an Alitalia flight from Rome, Sky News reported. Last week police detained Kercher's flatmate, Amanda Knox, 20, Knox's Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 24, and a Congolese man, Lumumba Diya, 37, known as Patrick, who runs a bar in Perugia, about 130km north of Rome.
A judge has ruled they should be held in custody for up to a year while police investigate the crime.
The three suspects have not been formally charged over the killing, which has shocked students in Perugia, a university city popular with foreigners studying in Italy.
- REUTERS
