Teenagers and a man were sentenced to prison time after stabbing a 16-year-old on the street in the United Kingdom and filming him dying before sharing the footage on Snapchat.
Cemeren Yilmaz was identified as the victim of the September 2018 attack.
Judge Simon Bryan revealed the names of the three minor attackers on May 21 for the first time because of how extreme the attack was, reported Metro.
They were named as Jacob Morgan, 15, Ramon Djauna, 15, Caleb Brown, 16, and Aaron Miller, now 20.
Bryan said in court that the murder came from “a sadly all too common backdrop of gang rivalry and associated carrying and use of weapons with tragic consequences and the loss of a young life.”
He and others in the courtroom listened as the wounds inflicted by the group were described, including a fractured skull and a gruesome stab wound. In addition to using a knife the group had a hammer they used to smash his face.
The attackers were part of the Black Tom gang while Cemeren was a former member who had joined a different gang and told his brother shortly before the attack that he might be jumped by rival gang members.
“People like this have no mercy,” he said.
Four young men, three of them teenagers, received life sentences yesterday (21 May 2109) after a #Snapchat video and a conversation in the back of a police van helped secure their conviction for the murder of a 16-year-old boy, Cemeren Yilmaz.
MORE: https://t.co/2zuByZwRBJ— CPS (@cpsuk) May 22, 2019
Djuana was named as the teen who filmed part of the attack as well as its aftermath, showing the victim lying on the ground, before posting it on Facebook.
When arrested and sitting in a police van, a declaration of one of the defendants was overheard, the Crown Prosecution Service stated.
One defendant said, “Cem done so much wrong like he done wrong to like our people, innit, and in the Bible it says defend your people, does it not?”
“It says love your neighbor and my neighbor is my people, innit, so if I’m defending my people, it wasn’t supposed to go that far,” the defendant said. “Just defending my people. It’s not like I end him off for no reason.”
Attorneys for the four convicts said they were regretful of their actions.
Describing what happened in court, officials called it a “grotesque” and “shocking” attack.
“This was a brutal and savage attack which has tragically cut short a child’s life. Cemeren was stabbed with such force that the knife almost passed through his body. The fact he was further attacked so brutally while he lay on the ground dying is sickening,” said Detective Chief Inspector Mike Branston from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit, reported the Bedford Independent.
“Miller and the three other boys have been involved in an attack of extreme violence and it is right that they have been found guilty for their role in this appalling crime.”
Senior Crown Prosecutor Nick Ramage added: “Our priority in this case was to prove that Cemeren’s attackers set out to seriously harm or kill him, so that justice could be served for him and his family. We were able to present CCTV footage and statements from witnesses in court which placed the four defendants at the scene of this attack.”
“However, it was the evidence we showed in the form of the video posted on social media and a recorded conversation between two of the offenders that clearly demonstrated to the jury the attackers’ intent to kill Cemeren,” he added. “This tragic case brings home the devastating impact that gang membership and its associated crimes can have.”
All four defendants received life sentences. Miller was sentenced to 21 years in prison minimum; Brown and Djuana got 17 years each minimum; Morgan received 16 years minimum.
