Men who killed man in robbery spree get 30 yrs on appeal

(ANSA) - MILAN, DEC 1 - A Milan appeals court on Tuesday cut from life to 30 years the sentences of two Moroccan men who went on a violent spree in the northern city on the night of April 26, 2018, culminating in the murder of a 22-year-old Bangladeshi waiter.
    Abdenachemi Amass and Saad Otmani, aged 30 and 32, wounded two men at Cinisello Balsamo during two robberies, attacked two young foreign women and stabbed one to take her cellphone, and then soon afterwards, near the central train station in Milan, murdered waiter Samsul Haque Swapan.
    The appeals court judges reduced the sentence because the two men had opted for a fast-track procedure - a reduction not recognised by the first-instance trial.
    Otmani's defence lawyer told the court that his client, at the time of the crimes dependent on a powerful benzodiazepine, was compensating his victims by putting aside 100 euros a month of the money he is earning in prison.
    The men were found guilty of robbing a Peruvian man at Cinisello Balsamo and the robbery and attempted murder of a homeless man.
    They were also found guilty of robbery and grievous bodily harm in the attacks on a young American woman and a young British woman.
    Prosecutors requested the confirmation of the life sentences.
    The pair killed Swapan with a stab wound to the chest, either with a knife or a screwdriver, prosecutors said.
    He had witnesses their attack on the two women.
    The pair were arrested at around ten o'clock the following morning, on CCTV evidence, at Milan's Stazione Centrale.
    The murder weapon was not found. (ANSA).