Less than 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 35-year-old Travis M., 35, who shot Arbery, and his 66-year-old father Gregory M. received no parole and an additional 20 years in prison, Judge Timothy Walmsley announced. The third accused, William B., a 52-year-old neighbor, was also sentenced to life imprisonment, albeit with the option of parole.
Arbery had jogged through the neighborhood of the three white convicts in the town of Brunswick. According to investigators, the defendants first followed him with their vehicle and then threatened him with firearms. According to the autopsy report, Arbery was shot twice in the chest at close range.
A jury had already found the three defendants guilty in November, and the sentence has now been announced. Gunman Travis M., 35, was found guilty of the murder by the jury. The two co-defendants 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.
A disturbing cell phone video of the fact
25-year-old Arbery was killed in February 2020, but no one was arrested initially. The investigation only really got underway a few weeks later when the case attracted national and international attention 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 defense argued that the men followed Arbery for mistaking him for a burglar. Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, asked the judge at the hearing on Friday for the maximum sentence for all three convicts, namely life imprisonment with no parole. “These men deserve the maximum sentence for their crimes,” said Cooper-Jones. The victim’s father, Marcus Arbery, said, “I pray that no one in this courtroom ever has to do what we had to do: bury your child.” Judge Walmsley said, referring to Ahmaud Arbery, “He was killed because people here in this courtroom took the law into their own hands.”
Although only one of the defendants fired the fatal shots, the other two were also tried for the murder of Arbery – for their involvement in the crime. Prosecutors argued that the actions of all three men resulted in Arbery’s death. The defendants had pleaded not guilty. In addition to the Georgia criminal case, the men are also charged under federal law on the alleged racist background. The justice ministry said last April that the crime was classified as a “hate crime”.