The killer of headteacher Philip Lawrence poses a "genuine risk" to the public, according to Home Office papers given to the tribunal that ruled he should not be deported.

It would breach Learco Chindamo's human rights to family life if he was sent back to Italy, where his father was from, the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal found on Monday.

The three-man panel made the ruling despite papers submitted by the Home Office, which rated Chindamo as the highest level of risk due to his notoriety.

The documents predicted it would be extremely difficult to find him somewhere to live on release from prison, and said he would need to be excluded from certain parts of the country.

Chindamo, now 26, was 15 when he stabbed Mr Lawrence to death outside St George's Roman Catholic School in Maida Vale, west London, in 1995.

The headmaster had stepped in to defend a 13-year-old boy against a gang of 12 youths led by Chindamo.

The Home Office has said it would appeal against the panel's ruling.

Referring to the Home Office evidence, the written judgment of the case said: "It was considered that he posed a continuing risk to the public and that his offences were so serious that he represents a genuine and present and sufficiently serious threat to the public in principle as to justify his deportation."

However, the judgment noted that the killer's high-risk ranking was largely due to the media interest he would receive on release and the risk of a "backlash".

Chindamo's defence team said there was no evidence their client, now aged 26, was a serious and present threat.

Reports on him had been "very positive" and the parole board had been "very impressed", they said.

The case prompted David Cameron, the Conservative leader, to call for the abolition of the Human Rights Act.

"It is a glaring example of what is going wrong in our country. What about the rights of Mrs Lawrence?"

Mr Lawrence's widow, Frances, who had to bring up their four children alone, said she had always been given the impression that the killer would be deported at the end of his sentence.

"In Article 2 of the Human Rights Act my husband had the right to life," she said.

"Chindamo destroyed that right yet he has used the legal process to enable him to live as described in Article 8.

"The Act works in his best interest. It is ill-equipped to work in my family or for people in my situation. That seems to me a major conundrum."

But Justice Minister Jack Straw, who passed the Human Rights Act when home secretary, said EU law had been more important in influencing the tribunal's decision.

In a summary of the case, the tribunal said it took the view that "EU law allowed deportation to be used neither as a mode of further punishment of offenders nor in order simply to dissuade other aliens from committing similar crimes.

"Removal of an EU citizen from the UK would have to be justified on the ground that he poses a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental interests of society.

"Everything said about Chindamo that was adverse to him, related to the past, not the future. An EU citizen cannot be expelled simply as part of the response to his having committed a serious crime.

"Chindamo had not been shown to pose a present and serious threat, and as he is a citizen of an EU country he cannot be expelled."