The district court in the eastern German city Frankfurt (Oder) found the boys guilty of premeditated murder in the killing of a homeless man last October in the city’s Lenne Park, a court spokesman told the German news service DDP. The maximum sentence the boys could have received was 10 years.
The two teens kicked and hit the man, robbing him of €3.30 ($5.19) and six cigarettes before breaking a bottle over his head and tossing him in a pond, where he drowned, the spokesman said. The boys were arrested eight days later after they assaulted a woman.
The spokesman told DDP the boys admitted most of their actions during the trial, which was not public because they are juveniles. One of the boys was already in custody on another case at the time of the sentence. The other was in detention while awaiting trial.