FLORENCE – “Inadmissible,” says the Court of this historic city with response to Rudy Guede’s appeal over his 16-year sentence confirmed in 2010 for the homicide of British student Meredith Kercher, found dead in her bedroom Nov. 1, 2007, whilst on a year abroad in Perugia.

 The Court deemed the request “inadmissible” and also ordered Guede to pay the legal costs of the trial.

 The defence lawyers of Ivory Coast-born Guede, Tommaso Pietrocarlo and Monica Grossi, asked for the acquittal of their defendant “for not having committed the offence,” yet without success.

 However, Pietrocarlo does not see this as the final word, claiming, “In our opinion, the amount of inconsistency that there is (within the case) is too evident -- the revision was admitted."

 The ‘inconsistency’ and ‘imcompatibility’ mentioned by the lawyer most probably refers to the previously highly debated involvement of American Amanda Knox and then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito in the murder of Knox’s flatmate.

 The pair were both convicted of murder and sexual assault back in 2009, then cleared on Oct. 3, 2011. Knox was then again reconvicted and sentenced to 28 and a half years, as Sollecito was also charged and sentenced to 25 years, in January 2014. The pair were finally acquitted of the charged in 2015.

 Guede, however, is still serving his time. The initial sentence was 30 years in prison after a fast-track trial in 2008, yet this was reduced to 16 years on Dec. 22, 2009. Italy’s highest criminal court upheld his conviction and sentence in 2010.

 sw