Meredith roommate to stay in jail

PERUGIA, Italy (CNN) -- A court has ruled that an American student and her Italian boyfriend held in connection with the death of a British student in Italy must remain in jail, according to one of the defense lawyers in the case.

Amanda Knox, the American student held in connection with the death of Meredith Kercher, protested her innocence to a court in Perugia on Friday, her lawyer said.

Knox's Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, 23, was also in court for the hearing to determine whether the two can continue to be detained by police.

Investigators looking into the death of British student Kercher say they have clear evidence that ties both suspects to the crime scene. The two suspects were forbidden to have any contact with each other and arrived at court in separate police vehicles around 9 a.m. (3 a.m. ET).

Knox, 20, -- who shared a villa with Kercher, also 20 -- was the first to go before the panel of three judges that ruled on their continued detention, her lawyer Luciano Ghirga told CNN after the hearing. Watch report about Knox's detention »

He said his client had given a brief statement to the court in which she proclaimed her innocence. Asked how she was feeling he said she was "a bit tense."

"We are happy and hopeful because we have been able to argue our case that the evidence against Amanda is not grave and, therefore, have asked the judge to free her," Ghirga told CNN.

Sollecito's hearing took place immediately afterward.

CNN obtained a copy of the report that Perugia's chief prosecutor Giuliano Mignini was to present at Friday's hearing to decide whether Knox and Sollecito can continue to be detained by police.

In the document, Mignini says Knox's DNA matched a blood stain found on the sink in the bathroom next to the victim's bedroom. The report also points to a footprint found by forensic police near Kercher's body that it says belonged to Sollecito.

Kercher, an exchange student at Perugia's university, was killed late November 1 in the villa where she lived. Investigators found her the next day, with a stab wound to her neck.

A report issued more than a week ago by an Italian judge suggested she may have been sexually assaulted at knifepoint before she was killed in her bed.

The prosecutor's report also says that a search of the villa revealed only one fingerprint belonging to the American, which it said suggested that the property had been cleaned to remove evidence of the crime. It accuses the suspects of staging a theft to cover their tracks.

One other suspect is still being held in connection with the case. Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, was arrested after fleeing to Germany. He is the only suspect to have admitted being in the villa on the night of the killing.

Guede claims that an unidentified assailant attacked the British student, his lawyer told CNN. E-mail to a friend

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