AN ITALIAN court has reinstated the guilty verdicts against Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for murdering Coulsdon student Meredith Kercher in 2007.
The verdict overturns their successful 2011 appeal, which freed them after four years in jail.
Knox, who is in the US, was sentenced to 28 years and six months in jail and her ex-boyfriend Sollecito received 25 years. They had both pleaded not guilty.
Miss Kercher was 21 when she was stabbed to death in the flat she shared with Knox in Perugia.
The judge ordered that damages should be paid to her family, who still live in Coulsdon.
Sollecito, who was in court, was ordered to surrender his passport. Extradition proceedings may now begin against Knox, who refused to return to Italy for the case.
The new appeal was heard in Florence and ordered by the supreme court in Rome.
It found the 2011 appeal – which acquitted the pair – was flawed as it had disregarded important DNA evidence.
Rudy Guede was convicted of murdering Miss Kercher at an earlier hearing and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Motive for the killing, said prosecutors, was a heated argument over cleanliness of the apartment.
In 2011 both defendants were cleared of murder after doubts were raised about the way DNA evidence was gathered.
