The request came the day after Karr returned to Boulder, Colorado, where the child beauty queen was found strangled on 26 December 1996.

Karr is due for his first Boulder court appearance tomorrow.

Seth Temin, a public defender who met with Karr for the first time on Friday, told a Boulder judge in court papers that any DNA samples from his client were not taken legally because his attorneys should have been consulted first.

Amid scepticism over Karr's claims that he was with JonBenet when she died by "accident, " a DNA link between the 41-year-old teacher and the crime scene could be of critical importance to the case.

Forensic scientists recovered DNA belonging to an unidentified white male from under her fingernails and in her underwear. That DNA has never been matched to any suspect in the notorious crime.

Prosecutors have not said if they have obtained DNA samples from Karr, arrested in Thailand last week. It was also unclear if they had tried to link him to foot and palm prints found near JonBenet's body.

Temin also asked judge Roxanne Bailin to make prosecutors turn over all the evidence amassed so far if they bring formal charges against Karr.

JonBenet's father, John Ramsey, found her body in the basement of their home just hours after her mother found a note claiming the girl had been kidnapped by a "small foreign faction, " and demanding $118,000 ransom. JonBenet had been strangled to death and her skull fractured. Forensic evidence suggests she had been sexually assaulted.