COTTBUS, Germany A German court found eight youths guilty of manslaughter on Monday for an attack on an Algerian asylum-seeker who bled to death after trying to escape a racist mob.
In a ruling in the eastern town of Cottbus that concluded a 17-month trial, three of 11 youths involved in the attack each received sentences of two to three years for manslaughter through culpable negligence, short of the 3-1/2 year terms sought by prosecutors.
Six were handed suspended sentences and two received formal warnings.
Omar ben Noui died after he and two other African asylum seekers were chased by the mob in the town of Guben near the Polish border in February 1999. Noui tried to escape the mob, which was shouting racist slogans, by jumping through a glass door into a building.
The Algerian, who also went by the name Farid Guendoul, was cut badly by the broken glass and bled to death.
Only one of the 11 youths, who are aged between 18 and 21, confessed to the crime.
Prosecutors said several are still active supporters of the far-right in the eastern town, where there have been a number of anti-foreigner incidents in recent years.
Germany has been plunged into a heated debate over immigration and nationalism with a surge of reported incidents of racist and anti-Semitic violence that have shocked a country sensitive to its Nazi past.
A monument to Noui in Guben has been desecrated five times since it was erected.
(Reuter)