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UK student killed in sex game?
11/01/2008 20:06 - (SA)
Rome - The DNA of an Italian suspect in the November murder of a British student has been found on her bra, bolstering the theory that she was killed in an extreme sex game, Italian media reported on Friday.
The suspect, 23-year-old Raffaele Sollecito, has been held for two months along with his 20-year-old former girlfriend, Amanda Knox, the American flatmate of Meredith Kercher, who was stabbed to death in Perugia on November 1.
The DNA of a third suspect, Rudy Hermann Guede of Ivory Coast, was earlier detected on the bra, as well as on a tampon found in the victim's body, according to press leaks of the investigation.
Media reports said Sollecito's DNA was detected on a fragment of the bra that was found in a second search of the crime scene in the medieval university town.
It had been cut from the bra with a knife, and Sollecito's DNA was found close to the cut, the ANSA news agency reported.
Sollecito's father Francesco, a prominent urologist in southern Bari, dismissed the new evidence against his son, telling reporters: "The most plausible explanation is that Amanda may also have worn the bra and therefore Raffaele would have touched it when she was wearing it."
Sollecito claims that he was at home surfing the internet on the night of the murder.
The alibi will be tested at a hearing on January 21 when investigators will present an analysis of his computer's hard disk.
Traces of both Kercher's and Knox's DNA have been found on a kitchen knife confiscated from Sollecito's apartment.
Investigators surmise that Knox, Sollecito and Guede were all present in Kercher's room when the 21-year-old exchange student was killed, but their roles in the murder remain unclear.
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