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Two men guilty of student murders | Two men guilty of student murders |
(10 minutes later) | |
Two men have been found guilty of murdering two French students in a bedsit in south-east London. | Two men have been found guilty of murdering two French students in a bedsit in south-east London. |
Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo, both 23, suffered hundreds of stab wounds after being tied up during the attack in New Cross in June 2008. | Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo, both 23, suffered hundreds of stab wounds after being tied up during the attack in New Cross in June 2008. |
Dano Sonnex, 23, of Peckham, south London, and Nigel Farmer, 33, of no fixed address, had denied murder. | Dano Sonnex, 23, of Peckham, south London, and Nigel Farmer, 33, of no fixed address, had denied murder. |
Justice Secretary Jack Straw has apologised to the families over blunders which left Sonnex free. | Justice Secretary Jack Straw has apologised to the families over blunders which left Sonnex free. |
Sonnex should have been in prison at the time of the killings, but has been freed following an administrative error. | Sonnex should have been in prison at the time of the killings, but has been freed following an administrative error. |
'Unimaginable horror' | |
A senior probation officer in London has resigned as a result of the mistakes. | |
Lydie Bonomo said her son Laurent would still be alive today if the mistakes had not been made. | Lydie Bonomo said her son Laurent would still be alive today if the mistakes had not been made. |
Sonnex and Farmer have also been found guilty at the Old Bailey of charges of burglary and false imprisonment. | |
During the trial prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC said Mr Ferez and Mr Bonomo had been tortured then murdered because Sonnex and Farmer were unable to get cash from a machine using one of the students' bank cards. | |
Both men deny murder, arson, false imprisonment and perverting justice | |
Mr Aylett said: "To take revenge for the fact that they had been unable to steal money from Mr Ferez, both men were murdered in a way that can only be described as inhuman. | |
"What the firemen found was a scene of almost unimaginable horror." | |
Sonnex and Farmer had blamed each other, but Mr Aylett described the crime as a "joint enterprise of unmitigated evil". | |
The biochemistry students from Polytech Clermont-Ferrand were weeks away from finishing a research project at Imperial College when they were killed on 29 June. |