Suspect in British Student's Murder Ready to Tell All

PERUGIA, Italy, Nov. 26, 2007 — -- Lawyers for a suspect in the murder of a British exchange student are seeking a new autopsy of the victim.

Meredith Kercher, 20, was found dead in her Perugia, Italy, apartment Nov. 2, after police say she was sexually assaulted and stabbed.

The three suspects in custody include University of Washington student Amanda Knox; Raffaele Sollecito, Knox's Italian boyfriend; and an Ivory Coast man named Rudy Hermann Guede who was arrested in Germany last week and is awaiting extradition to Italy.

Guede's lawyers are seeking a new autopsy, saying they hope for a better analysis of exactly when Kercher died.

Her body was flown to Britain Nov. 11, but it hasn't been buried. A decision on the autopsy request could be made as early as Tuesday.

Francesco Maresca, the Kercher family lawyer, said in Perugia today that he hoped the autopsy will not be needed and that the family could lay her to rest in Britain. "We hope that further tests on the body are not going to be needed," Maresca said, according to The Associated Press.

Guede is eager to be brought back to Italy so he can tell investigators what he saw, according to his lawyer, Lawrence Biscotti. Guede heard Kercher's final words, Biscotti says, and says that these would be at the heart of his defense.

"Rudy is determined to return to Italy as soon as possible to proclaim his innocence and demonstrate that he had nothing to do with the crime," Biscotti told ABC News.

Forensic evidence places Guede at the scene of the brutal murder. Fabio Giobbi, the director of the SCO, or forensic office of the Italian police, told ABC News last week that DNA found on the body of Kercher and in her bathroom after she was killed matched the DNA of Guede.

Guede was arrested in Germany on an international warrant because a bloody handprint matching his was on the cushion found under Kercher's body.

Biscotti concedes his client has admitted to having sex with the victim, as first reported by German newspapers last week. Biscotti says Guede says he went to the bathroom with a stomach ailment shortly after the sexual encounter. He heard the doorbell ring, but paid little attention, and then listened to three songs on his iPod that took, according to his lawyer's accounts, at least 12 minutes. Then he heard a scream and left the bathroom.