ROME – A footprint expert called by the prosecution testified on Saturday that a bloody footprint on a bathroom rug matched the Italian defendant in the 2007 slaying of a British university student, news reports said.
Lorenzo Rinaldi, who directs the identification section of Perugia's crime scene squad, told the court that the footprint on the bathroom rug appear to belong to Raffaele Sollecito, the ANSA news agency and Italian TV news reports said.
Sollecito, 24 and his former girlfriend, American student Amanda Knox, 21, are being tried for the slaying of Meredith Kercher, Knox's roommate.
Kercher's body was found, with stab wounds to the neck, in the victim's bedroom.
Both Sollecito and Knox deny all wrongdoing.
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ANSA also reported that Rinaldi testified that two footprints found elsewhere in the rented house — in a corridor and in a bedroom — matched Knox.
In a separate trial, an Ivory Coast national, Rudy Hermann Guede, was convicted of the slaying.
Prosecutors allege Kercher was stabbed during what began as a sex game.
Trial began in January for Knox and Sollecito, who risk receiving Italy's stiffest punishment, life imprisonment, if convicted of murder. They are also accused of sexual violence.
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