It is a case that shook the United States and aroused racial tensions. Friday, January 7, the three white Americans who had pursued and then killed a young black jogger, claiming to have taken him for a burglar, were sentenced to life in prison.
The murder of Ahmaud Arbery in February 2020
Travis McMichael, 35 and perpetrator of the fatal shots, and his father Gregory McMichael, 66, were given life sentences without the possibility of early release. Their neighbor William Bryan, 52, who participated in the prosecution by filming it, may hope for early release after 30 years in prison.
→ THE FACTS In the United States, a video overwhelms the perpetrators of a racist crime
Before the sentence was set, all three had been convicted last November of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, in February 2020 in the state of Georgia. The 25-year-old was jogging when he was chased by the three men in their cars. After an altercation, Travis McMichael opened fire and killed the jogger who was trying to grab his rifle, a case of self-defense.
“Running for his life”
Ahmaud Arbery was out “To jog and he ended up running to save his life”, said Judge Timothy Walmsley when handing down the sentence. The young man was “Hunted down and killed because the individuals in this room made the law themselves”, he explained.
Ahmaud Arbery’s family, who had demanded a “Maximum punishment” for the three men, welcomed these heavy penalties. “I knew that we would come out of court with a victory, I never doubted”, said his mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones.
Second trial for racist crime
Ben Crump, famous African-American lawyer, paid tribute “To all black men who have been lynched in the history of America and Georgia, and to whom justice has never been served”. “Self-defense always ends badly”, for her part told the hearing prosecutor Linda Dunikoski, believing that the McMichaels had not shown “No remorse, no empathy”.
The condemned have not finished with justice. They will now be tried for racist crimes by a federal court from February 7.
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