Madagascar: four sentenced to hard labour for life over mob lynching

By AFP

Madagascar A view of the courtroom on October 8, 2015 in Antananarivo, during the trial of 37 people accused of the lynching and murder of two Europeans in 2013. By Rijasolo AFP

OCT 9, 2015 LISTEN

A view of the courtroom on October 8, 2015 in Antananarivo, during the trial of 37 people accused of the lynching and murder of two Europeans in 2013. By Rijasolo (AFP)

Antananarivo (AFP) - A Madagascar court handed four men the maximum sentence Friday of hard labour for life over the mob lynching in 2013 of two Europeans and a local man, who were beaten and then burned on a beach.

The sentencing came as the court tried 37 people over the October 2013 murders, which were committed by a mob acting on false rumours of foreign involvement in the death of an eight-year-old local boy and a paedophilia connection.