Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito have been found guilty of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher after judges in Florence overruled their previous acquittal.

It is the third time American Knox, 26, and Italian national Sollecito, 29, have faced trial over the death, in Perugia in 2007.

Neither defendant was in the courtroom as the verdict was announced, though Sollecito had attended the lengthy hearings. Members of Miss Kercher’s family were there to hear the verdict.

The co-accused were originally found guilty of murder in 2009, and were handed jail terms totalling more than 50 years.

They were cleared nearly two years later – but the appeal court ordered a fresh trial in March last year.

Thursday, after lengthy deliberations, the court heard that both were guilty.

It is unknown whether the duo will appeal the decision, or whether Knox could be extradited from the US to Italy.

Rudy Guede, a drug dealer, is serving a 16-year sentence over the death – though the courts have said he did not act alone.

Miss Kercher, a 21-year-old Leeds University student from Coulsdon, Surrey, was found with her throat slashed in the bedroom of the house she shared with Knox in Perugia, central Italy, in November 2007.

Prosecutors claimed that Miss Kercher was the victim of a drug-fuelled sex game gone awry.

Knox and her former boyfriend Sollecito have consistently protested their innocence and claim they were not even in the apartment on the night Miss Kercher died.

Knox was convicted of the murder in December 2009 along with Sollecito following a high-profile trial, with Knox sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito 25.

The pair were later cleared in 2011 after an appeal court found the prosecution lacking and criticised large swathes of the case against them.

Italy’s highest criminal court, the Court of Cassation, ruled last March that an appeal court in Florence must re-hear the case against Knox and Sollecito for the murder.

Knox, who now lives in Seattle, said she would not attend due to being unable to afford to travel to Italy and remained in the US for the duration of the retrial.