- Almost two years after the murder of the black jogger Ahmaud Arbery in the US state of Georgia, the three white defendants have been sentenced to life imprisonment.
- The man who shot Arbery and his father were given no parole and an additional 20 years in prison, Judge Timothy Walmsley announced.
The third accused was also sentenced to life imprisonment, albeit with the option of parole. He and the archer’s father were involved in the persecution of Arbery.
A jury had already found the three defendants guilty in November, and the sentence has now been announced. The 35-year-old shooter was found guilty of the murder by the jury.
The two co-defendants, the 66-year-old father and the 52-year-old neighbor, were found guilty of grievous bodily harm and manslaughter, among other things. In Georgia, the same sentence applies to murder and various crimes that would correspond to manslaughter under German law.
Sluggish investigation
25-year-old Arbery was shot while jogging in the southern state in February 2020. But initially nobody was arrested. The investigation only really got going when the case gained national and international attention in the spring through a disturbing cell phone video of the crime.
A little later – on May 25, 2020 – the African American George Floyd was killed in a brutal police operation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Afterwards there were protests against racism and also against police violence in the USA for months.