American student Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were on Saturday found guilty of the murder and sexual assault of former roommate Meredith Kercher and sentenced to 26 and 25 years respectively in prison.

Minutes after the sentencing Knox, 22, and Sollecito, 25, were led to police vans to be driven to jail.

Knox has spent nearly two years in jail in the city of Perugia, Italy. Knox and Sollecito were charged with the stabbing to death of U.K. citizen Kercher, who was 21 at the time, in November 2007.

Kercher's body was found in a pool of blood with her throat slit in the bedroom of the house she shared with Knox.

Kercher's friends on trial described Knox's behavior as bizarre the day after the murder and when all the friends were crying Knox was doing cartwheels and handstands and snuggling with her then boyfriend Sollecito, PEOPLE reported.

Knox's parents were so confident of their daughter's innocence that they had bought her a flight ticket back home for Christmas. Her parents plan to appeal the sentence.

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