The men had already been found guilty in November.
Less than two years after the fatal shooting of the black jogger Ahmaud Arbery in the US state of Georgia, the three perpetrators have been sentenced to life imprisonment. Judge Timothy Walmsley announced the sentence on Friday in the city of Brunswick against the white men convicted of the murder in November. The judge ruled out early release for two of the men.
Travis M., who shot Arbery, and his father Gregory M. received no parole and an additional 20 years in prison, Judge Timothy Walmsley announced on Friday. The third accused, William B., was also sentenced to life imprisonment, albeit with the possibility of parole. Gregory M. and William B. 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 shooter Travis M., 35, was found guilty of the murder by the jury. The two co-defendants, Travis M’s father Gregory M. (66) and neighbor William B. (52) were found guilty of aggravated assault and manslaughter, among other things. In Georgia, the same sentence applies to murder and various crimes that would correspond to manslaughter under German law.
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. The two cases sparked the Black Lives Matter protests that kept the United States in suspense amid the presidential campaign.
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