Italy murder suspect, victim 'flirted'

PERUGIA, Italy, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- A man suspected of killing British student Meredith Kercher says he was in her apartment while she was stabbed in her bed but did not kill her.

Walter Biscotti, attorney for Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, said Guede and Kercher, 21, "kissed and flirted and touched" while Guede was in her apartment, but they did not have sex and Guede did not kill her, CNN reported Sunday.

Kercher, a British exchange student studying in Italy, was found naked with a stab wound to the neck in her villa Nov. 1.

Guede said he got up to go to the bathroom because he was feeling sick, and then heard Kercher scream from the bedroom, Biscotti said. He then ran back into the room and confronted her attacker.

Italian police, however, say they found Guede's DNA on a vaginal swab from Kercher, and have connected him to a bloody fingerprint found on her pillow.