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American will stay in jailin Italy

The student from Seattle is being investigated in her roommate's killing.

ROME - The parents of American student Amanda Knox visited their daughter in jail in Italy on Saturday - a day after a court kept her in detention despite her declaration of innocence in the killing of her British roommate.

During a closed court appearance Friday, Knox of Seattle said she was not in her Perugia apartment the night Meredith Kercher was killed, but was at the home of Raffaele Sollecito, her then-boyfriend, said Kercher family attorney Francesco Maresca.

But during the hearing, prosecutors presented an intercepted conversation Knox had with her parents while in jail, in which she appeared to indicate she was in the apartment she shared with Kercher, Maresca said.

He confirmed Italian media reports citing the intercepts in which Knox was quoted as saying: "It's stupid. I can't say otherwise; I was there and I can't lie about that."

Calls to Knox's attorney, Luciano Ghirga, were not answered Saturday. The daily La Stampa quoted Ghirga as saying that the quote places Knox in Sollecito's home, not her own.

Kercher, 21, was found dead Nov. 1 in the apartment she shared with Knox in the central Italian town of Perugia where both were studying. She had been sexually assaulted and died of a knife wound to the neck.

Knox, Sollecito and an Ivory Coast national, Rudy Hermann Guede, have been held in the slaying. A court ruled Friday that Knox and Sollecito will stay in jail.

On Saturday, Knox's parents, William Knox and Edda Mellas, visited their daughter in jail, but did not speak to reporters.

Sollecito's father, Francesco Sollecito, also visited his son in jail and said he found him "serene" despite the court setback. "We expected a different outcome," the elder Sollecito told reporters.

Guede was arrested in Germany on an international warrant issued by Italian authorities and is awaiting extradition to Italy.

He has acknowledged he was in Kercher's room the night she died, but said that he did not kill her and that an Italian who is trying to frame him did. It is not clear whom Guede accused. DNA testing has confirmed that Guede had sex with Kercher the night of the slaying.

A fourth person, Diya "Patrick" Lumumba, was released from jail for lack of evidence.

All four deny wrongdoing.

Knox has given contradictory stories to prosecutors, initially saying she was at Sollecito's apartment the night of the slaying, then saying that she was at home and that at one point had to cover her ears to drown out Kercher's screams. Knox had accused Lumumba of being the killer.

Maresca said that during Friday's hearing, Knox went back to her initial version that she was not in the apartment.

Maresca confirmed that prosecutors had obtained a diary Knox had written while in custody. News reports Saturday said that in the diary, Knox hypothesizes that Sollecito could have killed Kercher, slipping out of his apartment while she slept.

Sollecito has maintained he was at home the entire night of the slaying, working on his computer and watching a movie.

[Last modified December 2, 2007, 01:40:42]