Rudy Hermann Guede, convicted Ivorian, to testify at appeal

The appeal hearing of American student Amanda Knox against her murder conviction in Italy resumes Monday with all eyes on an Ivorian man also convicted in the slaying, who will testify as a witness for the prosecution.

Rudy Hermann Guede is serving a 16-year-prison sentence for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a British student who was stabbed to death in the apartment she shared with Knox.

Knox and her co-defendant, Raffaele Sollecito, have also been convicted in the murder and are appealing. Guede, who sought a fast-track procedure, was tried separately and has already exhausted all levels of appeals, with Italy's top criminal court upholding his conviction.

He will testify before the court hearing Knox and Sollecito's appeal at the opening of Monday's session, lawyers say.

Guede, 24, was called by the prosecution to counter testimony by a fellow inmate who testified for the defense and claimed he had information clearing Knox and Sollecito. Convicted child killer Mario Alessi told the court that Guede had confided in him during recreation time at the Viterbo prison that Knox and Sollecito had nothing to do with the killing.

Guede in the past has denied talking to Alessi about the case, and he is expected to repeat that when he takes the stand. Whether his testimony will go beyond that remains to be seen.

His lawyer Valter Biscotti stressed that Guede's testimony was admitted in reference to that particular claim, and might be limited to that alone. But he said the presiding judge has some leeway to allow some broader questioning.

"He's got nothing to hide and nothing to be afraid of," Biscotti said of his client.

However, when Guede took the stand during the pair's first trial, he declined to answer prosecutors' questions or offer any spontaneous testimony.

(Published by Huffington Post - June 26, 2011)