A pair of soccer hooligans on Friday were sentenced to 40 years in prison for the 2011 murder of a teenage rival soccer fan.
According to witnesses for the prosecution, one of the suspects cornered the 15-year-old victim in the parking lot of a supermarket in the southern city of Florencia, Caqueta, while a second suspect delivered what would prove to be fatal stab wounds.
On Friday, the Florencia Superior District Court ratified a decision made by a lower circuit court last October convicting the two hooligans of the murder, and sentencing them to 481 months in prison, which lawyers for the defendants had challenged on appeal.
Witnesses in the case claim that the murderers, members of soccer club America de Cali’s hardcore fans, were already attacking fans of other soccer teams with sticks, rocks, clubs and knives, before they confronted and killed the victim, a supporter of Medellin’s Atletico Nacional.
MORE: Central Colombia soccer violence leaves 14 injured
The murder is one in a series of violent soccer incidents to break out in Colombia in recent years.