3:33pm UK, Wednesday November 18, 2009

Nick Pisa in Perugia

Murdered British student Meredith Kercher was arguing about money with suspect Amanda Knox minutes before she died, her convicted killer has claimed.

Rudy Guede, 22, was jailed for 30 years for knifing and sexually assaulting the 21-year-old victim at her home in Perugia, Italy, in 2007.

Appealing against his conviction, the drifter told a court he saw American Knox’s “silhouette” running away from the house after he found the Briton dying.

Guede added that he had ”not raped or killed” Meredith and apologised to her family for not doing enough to save the student after her throat was slashed.

Ivory Coast-born Guede was sentenced in October 2008 following a fast-track trial.

His appeal is being heard just two days before the murder trial of Knox, 22, and her former boyfriend, 25-year-old Italian Raffaele Sollecito, resumes.

In a statement to the court in Perugia, Guede told how he met Meredith at a Halloween party in October 2007 and visited the house she shared with Knox the next day.

He said Meredith started complaining about cash going missing and blamed Knox, saying: “My money, my money. I can’t stand her (Knox).”

Guede said he went to the bathroom and put on his Ipod, but soon heard the two women shouting, then “a loud scream”.

“I came out and went into Meredith’s bedroom and I saw a male silhouette… I saw Meredith on the floor and this person tried to hit me,” he said.

“I fell over and this person ran out… I heard the footsteps of two people running away but I didn’t have courage to run out after them.

”I went into corridor and, looking out of the window, saw going away the outline of Amanda Knox.”

Following the murder, Guede was seen at a nightclub in Perugia before he fled to Germany, where he was arrested two weeks later.

Leeds University student Meredith, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was in Perugia as part of her European Studies degree.