NORWAY: Two neo-Nazis were found guilty yesterday of Norway's first racist killing after stabbing to death a mixed-race teenager because they did not like the colour of his skin.
In a case that bore a striking resemblance to the murder of the the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in Britain, an Oslo court sentenced Joe Erling Jahr to 16 years in prison and Ole Nicolai Kvisler to 15 years. Jahr (20), and Kvisler (22), had links to the country's neo-Nazi underworld, including the notorious "Boot Boys", and openly described themselves as racists.
A third defendant, Veronica Andreassen (18), was given a three-year sentence for her role as an accessory to last January's killing. The victim, Benjamin Hermansen (15), who was of mixed Ghanaian and Norwegian extraction, was stabbed 500 yards from his home in the southern Oslo suburb of Holmlia. He died of multiple stab wounds. - (Guardian Service)