LONDON, (Reuters) – Two British men were handed jail sentences totalling 75 years yesterday for the torture and murder of two French students during what prosecutors described as an “orgy of bloodletting” in the students’ London flat.
Dano Sonnex, 23, and Nigel Farmer, 33, tied up postgraduate students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, stabbed them a total of 244 times before setting light to their flat during a botched burglary last June.
Judge John Saunders said it was the worst crime he had ever dealt with and jailed Sonnex for a minimum of 40 years and Farmer for at least 35 years.
“The facts of this case are truly horrific,” the judge told London’s Old Bailey court, according to the Press Association. “The killers got pleasure from what they were doing.”
Sonnex winked at his father in the court’s public gallery and pretended to whistle as he was led from the dock.
Sonnex, who had been jailed for a previous knife attack and armed robbery, had been mistakenly let out of jail early despite taking drugs and setting fire to his cell.
Even when the error was spotted it was two weeks before police took Sonnex into custody. By then the students were dead.
