Killers of Ukrainian basketball players sentenced in Germany

A regional court in Essen, Germany, has sentenced four teenagers to eight and a half and ten years in prison for the murder of two Ukrainian basketball players, Volodymyr Yermakov and Artem Kozachenko.

According to WDR, the court found that the four teenagers, who were 14 to 16 years old at the beginning of the trial, had attacked two Ukrainians with knives and batons and therefore were guilty of their deaths. At the same time, the court did not find a xenophobic motive in their actions, saying that the defendants acted "realising" that they "did not need a reason to kill someone".

Earlier, the prosecutor's office suggested that the athletes were attacked because of their Ukrainian origin.

Two of the attackers were sentenced to ten years, and two others to eight and a half years. The defendants apologised to the parents of the murdered Ukrainians.

The sentences have not yet entered into force, and the defendants' lawyers have announced that they will appeal.

The attack took place in Oberhausen, Germany, on the evening of 10 February. The two Ukrainian basketball players were on their way to Dusseldorf when, according to the prosecution, they met the four defendants on a bus.

It is alleged that they immediately decided to attack and injure the two friends after they got off the bus. According to the prosecutor's office, the only reason for this plan was that the young men were Ukrainian. After everyone got off the bus at the main station in Oberhausen, the defendants allegedly immediately punched and stabbed both boys.

Volodymyr Yermakov, 17, died that evening during emergency surgery in hospital. His friend and teammate Artem Kozachenko, who was a year older, died 10 days later of septic multiorgan failure.