Trial to probe mystery of Chandra Levy's death

Jury selection began yesterday for the trial of an illegal immigrant from El Salvador that may finally answer a mystery haunting Washington DC for more than nine years: who killed Chandra Levy?

The story began on May 1, 2001, when the 24-year-old intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons left her flat in downtown Washington to go for a jog. She never returned - and her disappearance turned from a routine missing persons case into an international sensation.

It emerged she had been having an affair with the congressman from her home town in central California, and he became a suspect. But the congressman, Gary Condit, denied all involvement. A year after Levy vanished, a small part of the mystery was resolved.

On May 22, 2002, a man searching for deer antlers and other animal bones in a remote area of Rock Creek Park, about 6km from her home, found parts of a human skeleton. The remains were identified as those of Levy, and the case was declared a homicide. However, the trail went cold for five years.

Condit, who in 1992 was defeated in his bid for re-election to Congress, was exonerated as a suspect and, until March last year, the Levy case appeared destined to remain unsolved.

But an obvious suspect existed all along - Ingmar Guandique, who had entered the US illegally in 2000 from El Salvador and moved to Washington, where he worked as a day labourer and belonged to a local gang.

He had been convicted of assaulting two other female joggers about the same time as Levy's murder, and was serving 10 years in a California prison when he was arrested and charged in the Levy case in April last year.

Guandique pleaded not guilty. Now, almost a decade after Levy disappeared, his trial has started.

The outcome is far from sure. There were no witnesses to the Levy killing, nor any DNA evidence and no murder weapon has been found.

According to the Washington Post, the prosecution's case rests mainly on statements the accused made to fellow prisoners in prison, and on letters he wrote. Condit is expected to testify but is unlikely to throw much light on what happened.

- Independent