SAO PAULO
Three men were sentenced Wednesday for the murder of a Venezuelan beauty queen and her husband, authorities announced.
José Ferreira Herrera, 18, Jean Carlos Colina, 19, and 21-year-old Nelfrend Jiménez Álvarez had pleaded guilty to the double murder, according to a statement from the Public Prosecutor's office, and will spend the next 24 – 26 years in prison for the double murder that rocked Venezuela, and prompted protests against rampant crime in the country.
Former Miss Venezuela and soap star Mónica Spear, 29, and husband Thomas Berry, 39, were shot and killed Jan. 6 during an armed robbery on the Valencia-Puerto Cabello highway after their car broke down.
Moments after roadside assistance arrived, the car was intercepted by a group of men who fired repeatedly at the vehicle, Venezuelan news site Noticias24 reported. The couple’s five-year-old daughter, Maya, was shot in the leg during the attack, but survived.
Seven others, including two adolescents aged 15 and 17, are still on trial for their alleged role in the crime.
Prosecutors said the accused were part of gang targeting motorists along the highway, which winds through a sparsely-populated rural area near the country's San Esteban National Park.
The widely-reported crime forced President Nicolás Maduro to expedite an anti-crime plan and he vowed to crush crime with "an iron fist."
Coinciding with the International Day of Peace, Maduro announced Sunday that his government would invest $47 million (300 million Bolivars) in a national project to disarm the civilian population, including 60 new disarmament centers for civilians to hand in their weapons.
According to U.N. figures, the homicide rate in Venezuela was 53.7 per 100,000 people in 2012, ranking as the second most violent country in the world.
The government says the figure is lower but a Caracas-based nonprofit organization, the Observatorio Venezolano de Violencia, estimates the figure stood at 79 per 100,000 people in 2013, a rate the organization says has quadrupled in the last 15 years.
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