Student Meredith Kercher had her throat cut after a drug fuelled row between her and flatmate Amanda Knox "exploded aggressively", according to a judicial report.
In January, Knox and Sollecito were again found guilty of killing Meredith, 21, in the Italian town of Perugia.
Today the court in Florence detailed their reason for their verdicts, saying it was based on DNA evidence from the crime scene and the wounds suffered by Meredith.
The court said it believed Knox, Sollecito and a third convicted man Rudy Guede were all involved in the death of the Leeds University student in November 2007.
It added that two knives were used in the murder.
The judges said there was "no evidence to suggest the killing had been as the result of a sex game" - the motive which was originally used to convict them at their first trial in 2009.
The court noted it was out of character for Meredith to have taken part in anything like that. Instead she was murdered as a "result of the progression of aggression and a desire to humiliate", according to the report.
It added that Knox had used one of the knives and Sollecito the other.
The weapon American Knox used severed her throat and caused her death, the report claimed, adding that Sollecito and Guede had held forcibly Meredith down.
The report said that "between Amanda and Meredith had no reciprocal sympathies towards each other, the young English girl was very reserved compared to her flatmate".
Detailing Meredith's final hours, the document said Knox had "opened the door of the house to allow Guede inside which angered Meredith and eventually led to a row."
Knox and Sollecito had been taking drugs and the situation "exploded aggressively."
The report added: "It is a matter of fact that at a certain point in the evening events accelerated; the English girl was attacked by Amanda Marie Knox, by Raffaele Sollecito, who was backing up his girlfriend, and by Rudy Hermann Guede, and constrained within her own room."
Knox and Sollecito were arrested four days later and served four years in prison before an appeals court acquitted them in 2011. Knox returned to the U.S.
However in January, Italy's high court threw out that acquittal and ordered a new trial, resulting in January's conviction.
The court sentenced Knox to 28 years in prison and Sollecito to 25 years.
Sollecito has been ordered to hand surrender his passport ahead of the appeal and after the verdict was confirmed in January was caught close to the Austrian border with his current girlfriend although he insisted he was not fleeing the country.
Guede was convicted in 2008 and given 16 years for murder and sexual assault and he is expected to be released on parole within the next few weeks after his original 30 year sentence was reduced to 16 on appeal.
There was no immediate reaction from Knox or Sollecito following the release of the report.
Meredith, 20, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was in Italy as part of her Leeds University degree and had only been in the country for two months before she was murdered.
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