as showing that Guede had accomplices. If the Supreme Court grants an appeal against a guilty verdict, it usually sends the case back to be re-heard. It can also dismiss the prosecution case, although this is rare. Trial of Guede Guede fled to Germany shortly after the murder. During a November 19, 2007 Skype conversation with his friend Giacomo Benedetti, Guede did not mention Knox or Sollecito as being in the building on the night of the murder. Later his account changed and he indirectly implicated them in the murder, which he denied involvement in. Guede was arrested in Germany on November 20, then extradited to Italy on December 6. Guede opted to be tried in a special fast track procedure by Judge Micheli. He was not charged with having had a knife. He did not testify and was not questioned about his statements, which had altered from his original version. Guede was convicted of murder, but the official judges' report on the conviction specified that he had not had a knife or stabbed the victim, or stolen any of Kercher's possessions. Micheli's finding that Guede must have had an accomplice gave support to the later prosecution of Knox. The judges reasoned that Guede would not have faked a burglary, because it would have pointed to him in view of his own earlier break-ins (though at the time of the murder he was known to police only for being detained for trespassing in Florence). Despite Guede saying that Kercher had let him in through the entry door, the judges decided against the possibility of Guede's having gotten in by simply knocking on the door, because they thought Kercher would not have opened the cottage door to him (although she knew he was an acquaintance of her boyfriend, Giacomo Silenzi). In his original account, Guede had said that Kercher's confrontation with her killer had started at the entry door. One legal commentator on the case thought that insufficient consideration had been given to the possibility that Guede had called at the house on some pretext while Kercher was alone there, murdered her after she opened the door to him, and faked a burglary to cover his tracks. In October 2008, Guede was found guilty of the sexual assault and murder of Kercher and sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. His prison sentence was ultimately reduced to 16 years. (He was later given