Italy Student-Slay Fugitive Suspect Caught

A man wanted in connection with the killing of a British college student in central Italy was arrested Tuesday in Germany, Italian officials said.

Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, was detained in the western German city of Mainz, an investigator in Perugia told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Guede had emerged Monday as a suspect in the slaying of 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, found stabbed to death Nov. 2 in her Perugia apartment. A bloody fingerprint on a bedsheet led investigators to Guede, an Ivorian former basketball player who has been living in Italy since childhood, Italian media reported.

Guede is a known drug dealer, reports CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey. He posted a video of himself on the Web site YouTube, calling himself an alien and a vampire.

The new suspect was tracked via the Internet, including YouTube and postings he made of himself on the social networking Web site Facebook, as well as his mobile phone, reports Pizzey.

Three others, including Kercher's American roommate, University of Washington student Amanda Marie Knox, and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, have been jailed in Perugia.

A defense lawyer for another suspect, Congolese bar owner Diya "Patrick" Lumumba, said he has been told prosecutors will seek his release due to lack of evidence.

Authorities said they found Knox's DNA on the blade of a knife implicated in the killing that belongs to her boyfriend.

Italian police traced Guede to Germany through a friend who established Internet contact with the suspect Monday night and chatted with him for hours, the investigator said.

Police in Mainz confirmed the arrest Tuesday of a 20-year-old native of the Ivory Coast. The man was arrested on a train bound for nearby Frankfurt for traveling without a ticket, Mainz police spokesman Achim Hansen said.

In Perugia, Police Chief Arturo De Felice said Guede will be transferred to Italy within days.

"There was a trail to Germany; we knew that it could be one of the places where he could have sought refuge," he told SkyTG 25 television.

Lulumba's lawyer said he was expected to be released soon. "Lumumba is serene; he knows he will come out of this, there is no trace, nothing that leads to him," Giuseppe Sereni said.

Lumumba became a suspect based on Knox's accusations, court documents said. However, the American was confused about events Nov. 2 because she had smoked hashish that night, a judge said in a ruling ordering the three held in custody.

No physical evidence has emerged tying Lumumba to the crime scene, and witnesses have placed him at his bar the night of the murder.

A new date for another hearing for Knox and the two other suspects arrested with her could be set this week, reports Pizzey.