Suspects in UK student's murder kept in custody in Italy

ROME - Three suspects in the murder of a female English student in the Italian university town of Perugia, including the girl's American flatmate, were remanded in custody on Friday, judicial sources said.

Meredith Kercher, 21, was found in her bedroom on Nov. 2 hidden under a duvet with a deep cut to the throat.

Police this week detained Kercher's 20-year-old flatmate, the American's 24-year-old Italian boyfriend and a 37-year-old Congolese man who runs a shop in the town.

The murder in Perugia, about 130 km (80 miles) north of Rome, has resonated around Europe where thousands of young people take a year away from their home universities to study abroad under the Erasmus exchange scheme.

An autopsy found no evidence of rape but investigators have said there were reasons to suspect a sexual assault on Kercher.

Kercher was in her third year at Leeds University and studying for a year in Italy.