MILAN (AP) — The only person convicted in the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has gained permission to leave prison during the daytime to help with academic work on crime.

Italian news agency ANSA said Monday Rudy Guede will be allowed to work in a criminology studies department in Viterbo, where he is serving a 16-year sentence for the 2007 murder of 21-year-old Kercher.

The case in the university city of Perugia gained international notoriety after Kercher's American roommate, Amanda Knox, and Knox's then-boyfriend were placed under suspicion. Both were initially convicted, but after a series of flip-flop decisions Italy's highest court threw out the convictions in 2015.

Guede, 33, has previously been granted temporary release. The Kercher family lawyer said the decision to grant Guede day release "raises some perplexity."