Man serving time for murder, in Amanda Knox case, gets 36-hour pass from prison

VITERBO, Italy (AP) - A man from the Ivory Coast who is serving 16 years in an Italian prison for a British student's slaying is enjoying 36 hours outside jail for good behavior.

Rudy Hermann Guede was convicted of the 2007 stabbing death of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, where she was studying and sharing an apartment with U.S. student Amanda Knox. Guede has denied killing Kercher.

He is serving his sentence in a prison in Viterbo, where he was hosted Saturday for an overnight stay at a house run by volunteers assisting inmates.

Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, after earlier convictions and an acquittal, were definitively acquitted last year by Italy's highest criminal court. The trials were closely followed in the United States. Both had steadfastly proclaimed their innocence.