Argentina rugby players sentenced in high-profile beating death

Eight amateur rugby players have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for a 2020 murder that shocked Argentina, after an 18-year-old was beaten to death in what critics described as a racist and classist attack.

Five of the eight defendants — all between the ages of 21 and 23 — were handed sentences of life imprisonment on Monday in the death of Fernando Baez Sosa, a law student from a Paraguayan-born family.

The other three each received 15 years for playing a “secondary” role in the incident.

The verdicts came after a four-week trial in a court in the town of Dolores, 220km (140 miles) south of the capital Buenos Aires, that dominated national headlines.

“Justice does not repair but alleviates,” the governor of Buenos Aires province, Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, wrote on Twitter as the sentences were announced. “I deeply hope this verdict brings you some comfort.”

Lawyers for the Baez Sosa family have said they are considering whether to appeal the 15-year sentences, which fell short of the maximum of life imprisonment they sought against all the defendants.

“When evaluating the sentences, I think this is not justice,” lawyer Fernando Burlando was quoted in Argentina’s La Nacion newspaper as saying. He called Monday’s ruling “the first step” in the family’s pursuit of justice.