Meredith Kercher's funeral held

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

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

Her coffin was adorned with colourful floral tributes and a photograph of the young woman. She was later buried in a private service at a nearby cemetery.

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 newspapers that while she was "a bit wild" she did not kill her former flatmate who she liked.