No Bail For U.S. Murder Suspect In Italy

(CBS/AP)  An Italian judge ruled Wednesday that an American college student and her former Italian boyfriend will remain jailed while awaiting trial in the killing of the woman's British apartment mate, lawyers said.

Judge Paolo Micheli rejected requests by the defense to grant house arrest to both Amanda Knox, a student from Seattle, and her ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito of Italy. Their trial is scheduled to start Dec. 4.

Micheli indicted the two suspects Tuesday on charges of murder and sexual violence in the slaying of 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher, who was found stabbed in the neck last Nov. 2 in the apartment she shared with Knox in Perugia.

Both Knox and Sollecito have denied wrongdoing.

Defense lawyers had proposed Knox be held at a community for recovering drug addicts and young offenders run by a Roman Catholic charity near Perugia. Prosecutors argued she was likely to flee.

"We would take anything to get her out of prison," Knox's father, Curt, told The Associated Press by telephone before the decision.

Francesco Maresca, a lawyer for Kercher's family, said the judge turned down a request for bail in a 17-page ruling. He did not give the judge's reasoning.

Knox, 21, and Sollecito, 24, have been in custody for almost a year. Sollecito is being held in the nearby city of Terni and Knox is in Perugia.

In addition to ordering their trial Tuesday, the judge convicted a third suspect - Rudy Hermann Guede of Ivory Coast - on the same charges and sentenced him to 30 years in prison. Guede, who also denied any wrongdoing, asked for a fast-track trial.

Prosecutors say Kercher died during what began as a sex game. Sollecito is accused of holding Kercherr by the shoulders from behind while Knox touched her with the point of a knife and Guede tried to sexually assault her. Prosecutors say Knox then fatally stabbed Kercher in the throat.

CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey reports the most damning evidence appears to have been the fact that both Knox's and her boyfriend's DNA were found on the clasp of Kercher's bra.

Sollecito's defense team says the bra bore multiple DNA traces and charge the evidence might have been inadvertently contaminated during the investigation.

"One issue on which no one disagreed was that the 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher was decent, well liked, and an innocent victim," reports Pizzey.

Guede, 21, admitted being in the house, but denied taking any part in the killing, saying he was in the bathroom when Kercher was attacked. He said he fled Italy after the slaying because he was frightened.

Sollecito has said he was in his own apartment at the time of the killing and doesn't remember if Knox spent part or all of that night with him.

Knox initially told investigators she was in the apartment when Kercher was killed and covered her ears against the victim's screams. Later, Knox said she wasn't in the house.

[alliekat6]

Bail?? So she can flee to America and be feted like a hero? If she''s innocent, why did she contradict herself so many times, why did she completely clean her room the night of the murder when all her roomies said she was a slob, why, when she saw blood in the shower did she still take a shower instead of leaving and getting the police? it appears lil miss innocent did an awful lot to impede any police investigation, and no, her lawyer can''t claim she''s dumb and didn''t realise what she was doing was going to impede an investigation, afterall, her family are constantly stating how bright she is.....
The Kercher family have a right to know what happened and why, the same as the Knox family would had it been Knox who had been murdered.