A CRUCIAL new witness has claimed that he saw the Leeds exchange student Meredith Kercher with her alleged killers two days before she was stabbed to death in the Italian city of Perugia.

According to investigators, his account demonstrates that all the accused knew one another and sealed a murder pact.

The unnamed witness, described only as a man in his forties, told prosecutors that he saw the victim outside her home with her American housemate Amanda Knox, Knox’s Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and the Ivory Coast drifter Rudy Guede. The four were leaving the cottage which Kercher and Knox shared, and walked through the front gate together.

“The testimony is important because it’s the only precise indication that the three alleged killers knew each other and were together shortly before the murder,” said Francesco Maresca, the lawyer for the Kercher family. Guede and Sollecito claim they had never met before the murder.

A half-naked Kercher, 21, was stabbed three times in the throat, in her bedroom on the night of November 1, 2007. Guede has been sentenced to 30 years in jail for sexually assaulting and murdering her. Knox and Sollecito will go on trial for the same charges next week. They both maintain their innocence.

The Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera yesterday quoted the witness as telling investigators: “I’m almost certain that it was on October 30, 2007. I was out for a stroll on Via della Pergola [Kercher’s street] and I saw the four young people come out of the cottage gate. I’m certain Rudy was there because I knew him by sight and, after I saw the pictures in the newspapers, I recognised the others too,” the witness testified.

The man said that soon after the murder he told friends what he had seen but did not contact investigators at the time because he was not sure his evidence was important.

Prosecutors argued that Kercher’s killers wanted to persuade her to take part in a sex game and murdered her when she refused. They say Knox stabbed Kercher in the throat while Guede strangled her and Sollecito held her.

For the prosecutors, the new evidence is crucial to proving that the three went to the cottage to rape and kill Kercher.

They will summon a total of 90 witnesses to the trial. Among them are six who have only recently come forward. One young woman says she was woken by a scream on the night of the murder and two more say they heard the sound of people running away.

Kercher’s parents, John and Arline, her brother Lyle and her sister Stephanie, have been asked to address the court about her character and their suffering over the past year.

Meanwhile Knox’s family and friends have launched a new website (www.amandadefensefund.org) described as “a special place to share who the ‘real’ Amanda Knox is and allow you to help support her”.

It includes family photographs showing Knox playing with a guitar at the age of three, studying in her room and beaming at her graduation ceremony. Donors can send cheques to the fund or donate Air Miles to help pay for her legal fees.

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