Two teenagers have been sentenced to at least 15 years for the machete murder of 14-year-old Kelyan Bokassa on a London bus.
Kelyan was killed on 7 January in Woolwich, southeast London, in what prosecutors said was a planned attack.
The defendants, now 16, who are too young to be named, stabbed him 27 times with machetes.
They pleaded guilty in May, with one appearing to change his plea at the last moment, and both admitted possessing an offensive weapon.
On Friday, Judge Mark Lucraft KC sentenced the two boys to life in prison, with a minimum term of 15 years and 110 days before they can be considered for parole.
He noted that during the attack, “the CCTV shows you were smiling,” and said Kenyan’s death was a “senseless loss” of another boy to the “horrors of knife crime”.
Prosecutor Tom Little KC previously told the Old Bailey that Kelyan was attacked “almost instantaneously” by the boys on the top deck.
Kelyan suffered a severed femoral artery during the attack, which happened in the middle of the afternoon in Woolwich Church Street, and died shortly after medics arrived.
Speaking after his death, his mother Mary Bokassa said he had been groomed by gangs from the age of six, and she was not surprised when she found out he was dead.
Ms Bokassa said the pair had spent Christmas together, after he was previously in care for several years, but she was concerned he still had “one foot in the streets”.
She said she had tried to stop him associating with gangs but did not get support from authorities.
One of the machetes used in the attack was thrown in the River Thames but later recovered.
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