A Perugia judge today ruled that Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, the two remaining suspects in the murder of the British student Meredith Kercher a year ago, must remain in prison until their trial begins in five weeks time.

The judge, Paolo Micheli, turned down a request by defence lawyers for the pair to be released from prison pending the trial, which begins on 4 December in Perugia. He said there was a danger that they would try to flee or commit the same offence again.

Luciano Ghirga, one of Ms Knox's lawyers, said this was "completely without foundation". Ms Knox had asked to be transferred to a supervised shelter for young offenders run by a Catholic charity at a farm in the Umbrian countryside, 40 kilometres from Perugia.

After two months of pre-trial hearings and eleven hours of final deliberation Judge Paolo Micheli sentenced Rudy Guede, 21, an Ivory Coast immigrant and drifter, to 30 years in prison on Tuesday for killing and sexually assaulting Ms Kercher.

Guede had opted for a fast track trial, a procedure which normally guarantees the defendant a reduced sentence. His lawyers said he had done this because he feared Ms Knox and Mr Sollecito were trying to frame him.

The judge also ordered Ms Knox, 21, an American student from Seattle who was Ms Kercher's flatmate, and Mr Sollecito, 24, her former Italian boyfriend, to stand trial on a charge of murder, sexual violence and theft. Both face a life sentence if convicted.

Court sources said Mr Guede had stared straight ahead without emotion on hearing the sentence. Ms Knox put her head in her hands and began to cry, saying "I want to go home". while Mr Sollecito bowed his head. He also asked his lawyers when he could go home.

Both had apparently believed they would be acquitted. Ms Knox told her lawyers she was "very scared". When told about the battery of TV cameramen, photographers and reporters waiting outside the court, she was reported to have said: "I don't want to appear, I want to disappear".

Ms Kercher, a Leeds University exchange student from Coulsdon,South London, died during what Perugia prosecutors describe as a macabre sex game fuelled by drugs the night after Halloween at the whitewashed hillside cottage the British student shared with Ms Knox. Both had arrived in August to spend a study year abroad.

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