Blood has been found on a sponge and paper tissue at the flat of Raffaele Sollecito, one of the three suspects in the murder and attempted rape of Meredith Kercher two weeks ago.

The results of forensic tests on Mr Sollecito's knife – said by police to be "compatible" with the murder weapon – and his Nike trainers are expected to be announced later today.

Mr Sollecito's lawyers say they are confident that no blood would be found on either the knife or the trainers, even though the shoes are said to be "compatible" with a bloody footprint in Ms Kercher's bedroom. They suggest that the blood on the sponge and paper tissue is Mr Sollecito's own, "since he suffers from nosebleeds".

Police technicians will today begin examining the hard disk of Mr Sollecito's computer, on which he claims he surfed the internet at home on the evening of the murder. The results of tests on hair mingled with blood found clutched in the fingers of Ms Kercher’s left hand – possibly that of her killer – are still awaited.

New witness 'saw Meredith suspects together'

Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede were see at the house in Perugia where the American student died

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• Murder in Perugia

BACKGROUND

• Meredith Kercher: Q&A

• New DNA not from Meredith suspects

• Timings crucial to Kercher murder investigation

Related Links

• Meredith suspect 'acted oddly'

• Meredith or Madeleine: it's trial by media

• When bad things happen to good people

Mr Sollecito, 23, his American girlfriend Amanda Knox, 20, and Diya Lumumba (known as Patrick), a Congolese musician and bar owner, are all being held on suspicion of involvement in the killing on the evening of Thursday November 1. Ms Kercher was found beneath her duvet semi-naked and with her throat cut on the morning of Friday November 2.

In a mysterious twist, phone records also show that a call was made from Ms Kercher's mobile at 1015 pm on the evening of her murder. The call was not to another person but to a recorded message service advising the phone owner how much credit is left. It is not clear whether Ms Kercher made the call herself before she died, or whether one of her killers did so after the murder to give the false impression she was still alive.

The phone was one of two found the next day in a nearby garden, which turn led the postal police to the cottage as they sought to trace the phone’s owners. Instead they found Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito at the scene claiming there had been a break in. There was blood in the bathroom, a window had been smashed, and Ms Kercher's door was locked. The police broke down the door and found the body.

Police said that phone records also showed that the phone at Mr Sollecito's flat rang at "around midnight" on the evening of the murder but no-one answered. Records also show that Mr Sollecito's father, a urologist in Bari in southern Italy, sent him an SMS to say goodnight, but his son did not reply. Mr Sollecito has said he smoked cannabis all evening and has a hazy recollection. He insists however that he was at the flat the whole time, whereas Ms Knox only returned to his flat at 1am.

La Voce Nuova di Perugia, a local paper, said fingerprints analysed in the cottage included those of the three women Ms Kercher shared the house with – Ms Knox and two Italian students, Filomena Romanelli and Laura Mezzetti – as well as those of Mr Sollecito. There were no prints however of Mr Lumumba, who has produced witnesses to back up his alibi that he was in his bar, Le Chic, all evening. The fact that faeces found in the toilet of the shared bathroom at the cottage were not those of any of the three suspects has reinforced the investigators' theory that a fourth person was involved.

The paper quoted Carmelo Lavorino, a criminologist, as saying the killer could have been a woman since Ms Kercher was stabbed in the throat but not with sufficient force to kill her at once. Instead she bled to death in "slow agony". The fact that the killer then covered the body with the girl's duvet was a gesture which showed either "instinctive repentance by someone who knew her " or "a desire to forget the crime by covering it from sight."

Reports said a witness who had contradicted Mr Lumumba's claim that he had opened his bar "about 5.30 or 6pm" on the evening of the murder had changed his mind. The unnamed witness had told police he had passed the bar about 7pm and seen it closed. He now says he "cannot be 100 per cent sure".

Father Saulo Scarabattoli, chaplain at the Perugia prison, said Mr Sollecito was "quiet and depressed" and spent most of his time reading. Ms Knox either wrote her diary or watched television in her cell, which she shares with an Italian woman also held on suspicion of murder in a different case. Father Scarabattoli said he had advised Ms Knox not to watch news bulletins but to "switch channels" when the news came on.

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