Trial for UW student in Italian murder case?

ROME — A date has been set for a court hearing on whether a UW student and two other suspects in the slaying of a British college student in Italy must face trial, a lawyer for one of the suspects said Wednesday.

A judge is expected to rule at the Sept. 16 hearing on whether Amanda Knox, 21, of Seattle; her former Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito; and Ivory Coast citizen Rudy Hermann Guede be tried for the slaying of Meredith Kercher, said Sollecito's lawyer Luca Maori.

Prosecutors want to try the three for the slaying of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student from Leeds University in England who was found dead in November from a stab wound to the neck in the house she shared with Knox in Perugia, central Italy.

Prosecutors also have requested the three be tried on charges of sexual violence and stealing $475, two credit cards and two cell phones from Kercher.

All three have denied any wrongdoing.

Knox and Sollecito have been jailed since November. Guede was arrested later in Germany and extradited to Italy in December.