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Illustrative purposes only: A sign stands in front of the courthouse in Essen, indicating the district court, local court, and labor court, on Aug. 8, 2023, in Essen, Germany. (Christoph Reichwein/picture alliance via Getty Images)
A court in the German city of Essen on Dec. 2 sentenced four teenagers to between eight and a half to 10 years in a youth detention center for the murder of two Ukrainian basketball players earlier this year, German media reported.
Volodymyr Yermakov, 17, and Artem Kozachenko, 18, were attacked with knives in Oberhausen in February. Yermakov died in the hospital the same day, while Kozachenko succumbed to his injuries 10 days later.
The perpetrators were between 14 and 15 years old at the time of the attack and included two Syrian citizens and two German citizens, the ARD news channel reported. Deutsche Welle reported that one of the Germans also holds Greek citizenship.
Due to the perpetrators' age, the proceedings were held in a juvenile court behind closed doors.
While the prosecutors initially assumed that the victims were attacked for being Ukrainian, the court could not establish a xenophobic motive. The perpetrators were "looking for trouble," a court spokesperson said, according to the WDR broadcaster.
According to the court's ruling, the perpetrators sought to provoke a conflict during a journey on a bus with the victims giving them no reason to do so. After getting off the bus, Yermakov and Kozachenko were beaten and fatally stabbed.
The verdict took other previous crimes into account, with some of the attackers considered repeat offenders. One of the defendants reportedly admitted to the knife attack, while others to the beatings.
Two perpetrators will now serve 10 years in a youth detention center, and the other two eight and a half. Their defense plans to appeal the verdict.
The two Ukrainian basketball players fled to Germany in 2023 due to Russia's full-scale war, joining the ART Giants basketball team in Dusseldorf.
Martin Fornusek is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as a news content editor at the media company Newsmatics and is a contributor to Euromaidan Press. He was also volunteering as an editor and translator at the Czech-language version of Ukraïner. Martin studied at Masaryk University in Brno, Czechia, holding a bachelor's degree in security studies and history and a master's degree in conflict and democracy studies.
Kateryna Denisova
