Three sentenced to 125 years for murder of Syrian refugee toddler

Abdullah Kurdi and his sister Tima react in front of a Sea-Eye rescue boat named after his son and her nephew Alan Kurdi. Pic/AFP

A Turkish court on Friday handed three suspects convicted for the murders of a Syrian toddler Alan Kurdi and five others 125 years in prison each, according to state news agency Anadolu.

Turkish forces captured the three men, who were organisers of human trafficking, earlier this week in the southern Adana province. The Bodrum High Criminal Court in Mugla sentenced them for "killing with eventual intent".

The sentence comes four and a half years after Kurdi's lifeless body washed up on a beach near the resort city of Bodrum in Turkey's Mugla province, which borders the Aegean Sea. Five other refugees who shared the boat with him were also found dead.

A number of other Syrian and Turkish defendants have received prison sentences for their role in the incident, but the three defendants sentenced on Friday had fled during the trial. Kurdi made headlines worldwide as the image of his body became an icon for the migration crisis. The imagery resonated particularly strongly in Germany, which went on to take in more than 1 million refugees.

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