Profile: Rudy Guede | Profile: Amanda Knox | Profile: Raffaele Sollecito | Pictures | Kercher murder: the three versions

An immigrant who turned his back on his adoptive family and drifted into a life of petty crime was convicted yesterday of the murder and sexual assault of the British student Meredith Kercher, who was killed in Perugia one year ago. He was sentenced to 30 years in jail.

Rudy Guede, 21, who was arrested after fleeing to Germany, had chosen a fast-track trial in the hope of a reduced sentence if found guilty. His lawyer, Walter Biscotti, said that he would appeal.

In a separate ruling, Amanda Knox, Ms Kercher’s American flatmate, and Ms Knox’s former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, who have been in custody since the crime, were ordered to stand trial on December 4 for Ms Kercher’s death.

Ms Kercher’s parents, John and Arlene, her sister Stephanie, and brothers Lyle and John were in court in Perugia to hear the ruling by the judge, Paolo Micheli.

The family had also attended the opening of the pre-trial hearings for Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito last month, when they said they hoped for justice for their daughter and that they would seek €25 million (£20 million) in compensation.

Court sources said that Ms Knox began to cry when the ruling was read out last night. She was comforted by her lawyers, who told her: “Don’t worry, we will fight on.”

Mr Sollecito, apparently not understanding that he was to stand trial, asked his lawyers if he could go home. “When will I will be free?” he asked. Luca Maori, one of his lawyers, said Mr Sollecito had been cold and felt unwell awaiting the ruling for 11 hours in an underground cell at the courthouse. “He seemed like a lost bird,” Mr Maori said.

The judge will make a decision today on a defence motion to allow the pair out of prison and place them under house arrest while awaiting trial.

Ms Kercher’s family described the sentencing of Guede as “really important in our steps towards justice for Meredith”. Lyle Kercher said: “We are as satisified as we can be with the decision we have received. It is important to remember at the end of the day we are here because our sister Meredith was murdered.”

During Guede’s trial the prosecution said that the three took part in a drug-fuelled Hallowe’en sex party in which Ms Kercher, from Coulsdon, South London, was an unwilling participant. She was found on November 2 last year, half-naked and with her throat cut, in the bedroom of the cottage she shared with Ms Knox. The pathologist said that she had died a “slow and agonising death”.

According to a prosecution reconstruction, Guede and Mr Sollecito held Ms Kercher down, while Ms Knox stabbed her in the throat. Much of the pre-trial process has centred on the DNA evidence, which is the crux of the prosecution case.

In the closing stages of the pre-trial hearings, the prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, rejected claims that the police had contaminated DNA evidence placing all three suspects at the scene of the crime.

Guede admitted that he was at the cottage on the evening of the crime, but claimed that he was innocent and that Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito had sought to frame him for the murder. His lawyers had argued that there was nothing to link him to the presumed murder weapon, a kitchen knife that had traces of the DNA of Ms Knox and Ms Kercher, but not of Guede.

His defence was that he had met Ms Kercher the previous evening — Hallowe’en — that he had arranged a “romantic” date with her, that he went to the cottage but that he did not murder her. Instead, he said they made an unsuccessful attempt to have consensual sex, after which he went to the bathroom with stomach pains.

He had his iPod earphones on but heard Ms Kercher’s screams and found a man standing over her bloodied body holding a knife. He struggled with the man, who allegedly fled, saying: “You’re in trouble, you black bastard”, accompanied by a woman whose voice Guede heard but whose face he did not see. The man with the knife, Guede’s lawyers claimed in the pre-trial hearings, was Mr Sollecito, and the woman was Ms Knox. But police said Guede’s DNA was almost everywhere else — on the victim’s body, her tampon, her bag, and on toilet tissue. His bloodstained handprint was on her pillow, and footprints on her bedroom floor matched trainers found at his flat. He fled to Germany via Milan after the murder, sleeping rough on barges on the Rhine, but was arrested near Mainz for travelling on a train without a ticket, and extradited to stand trial in Italy.

Ms Knox is said to have passed a note to her lawyers during the final pre-trial hearing on Monday saying: “This is a horrible moment for me. I feel terrible. I am not a killer.”

Stephanie Kercher said family and friends would commemorate the anniversary of Meredith’s death on November 1. “Obviously this is a difficult time of year for us,” she said.

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