Meredith funeral to be held weeks after Italy murder

LONDON - Meredith Kercher, the British student found murdered in her bedroom, will finally be laid to rest on Friday, six weeks after she was killed in Italy.

The 21-year-old's family and friends will gather at a church in Croydon, south London, to mourn Kercher, killed in the Italian college town of Perugia on November 2.

She will later be buried in a private service at a nearby cemetery, a Scotland Yard spokesman said. Hundreds of friends and family are expected to attend the service.

Kercher, an exchange student from Leeds University, was found semi-naked with a deep cut to her throat.

Her brutal death made international headlines after prosecutors revealed their belief that she was killed because she refused to have sex with one or more attackers.

It also resonated with European students as thousands of young people like Kercher study under the Erasmus exchange programme. Perugia is a choice destination.

A suspect in her murder, Rudy Hermann Guede, a 20-year-old man from Ivory Coast, was extradited back to Italy earlier this month from Germany, for questioning over the murder.

Police say they had found fingerprints matching his on Kercher's pillow, which place him at the scene of the crime.

He left Italy for Germany after the killing and was arrested there on November 20.

Two other suspects are also in police custody -- Kercher's American flatmate, Amanda Knox, 20, and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 24.

They have all denied their involvement in the killing.

Despite protesting their innocence, a court has ruled Knox and Sollecito should stay in jail until trial.

Knox has told Italian newsapers that while she was "a bit wild" she did not kill her former flatmate who she liked.