Rudy Guede has been released from prison after serving 10 years of a 16-year sentence for the murder of his friend Meredith Kercher, The Guardian reports.
In his appeal conviction for Ms. Kercher’s 2007 death, Guede was ordered to serve the balance of his sentence in jail. Despite this sentence, the Netherlands said it would release Guede, who was serving his time at the former maximum security prison Arnhem. Ried’s lawyer told The Guardian that an “extraordinary” judicial opinion from a Dutch court had issued a writ to lift the sentence that applied to the March 10, 2010 killing. The 15-page handwritten opinion justified that Guede was tried in Italy for murder and had received a reduced sentence for being an accomplice, who had helped Ms. Kercher’s accused killer to dispose of her body.
“According to his testimony, Rudy Guede was not alone at the time of the assault which led to the death of Meredith Kercher,” said the court. “That made clear that he could not have committed the crime of murder and that therefore, as an accomplice to the murder, he did not receive a reduced sentence.”
While few questions remain regarding the gruesome 2011 trial and conviction of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for their part in Kercher’s murder, those following the case have been disappointed to see how little progress has been made in their unsuccessful quest to overturn the conviction and get the case reopened. In June 2017, Knox’s German-born mother, Edda Mellas, broke down in tears while calling on the Italian justice system to reopen the case against her daughter and Sollecito. Knox is being held in Italy in connection with a hate crime after a video footage of her speaking Italian was posted online, but according to reports she is nearly impossible to locate. Sollecito faces a retrial in Italy later this year.
Regardless of how the case unfolded, Knox and Guede have both moved on to other parts of their lives since they were charged with the murder of Kercher. Despite having pleaded with authorities to stop Meredith’s alleged killer from getting away with a life sentence, Knox found love with a university in Florence and eventually moved to the Netherlands, where she lives in anonymity with her journalist boyfriend. The 28-year-old was also photographed grocery shopping earlier this year while sporting a wedding ring.
Javier Guede Guede is a citizen of Italy, France and Spain.
Read the full story at The Guardian.
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