FLORENCE, Italy -- A Florence court has convicted a Senegalese man of murdering an American woman in her flat after they met at a nightclub. The court has sentenced him to 30 years in jail.

Ashley Olsen, 35, was found dead in her apartment Jan. 9, 2016. An autopsy found that she had been strangled and had suffered skull fractures.

Police arrested Cheik Tidiane Diaw a few days later after street surveillance cameras showed him walking with Olsen toward her home that night, and DNA traces were found on a cigarette butt and condom in her apartment.

Diaw told police he and Olsen, of Summer Haven, Florida, had fought but denied strangling her.

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Prosecutors had sought the maximum sentence of life in prison.