LONDON: A UK judge on Friday jailed for 42 years a man who decapitated and dismembered two people before dumping their bodies in suitcases on a landmark UK bridge.
Colombian national Yostin Mosquera murdered Albert Alfonso, 62, who was originally from France, and Paul Longworth, 71, last year at a flat the couple shared in west London where he had been staying with them.
A court earlier this year found the 35-year-old guilty of murdering both men.
Sentencing him to life with a minimum term of 42 years, Judge Joel Bennathan said the murders had been “premeditated and thoroughly wicked.”
“It was their tragedy that you, Yostin Mosquera, came into their lives,” he said, adding he was “sure” Mosquera had intended to try to sell their flat after killing them.
Mosquera filmed himself having sex with Alfonso and stabbing him to death after killing Longworth, who was struck with a hammer on the back of the head, prosecutors told the court earlier.
Police found the couple’s severed heads in a freezer at the flat, while Mosquera took their bodies to the southwestern city of Bristol in two suitcases where he left them on the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
An analysis of Mosquera’s computer showed he had looked up the value of the couple’s west London home, copied documents containing Alfonso’s online banking details, and searched the web for “serial killers of London” and “Jack the Ripper film.”
Alfonso, a swimming instructor, and Longworth, a retired maintenance worker, became civil partners in 2023.
Judge Bennathan described Alfonso as “a hardworking man who had shown (Mosquera) kindness and generosity.”
Longworth was a “harmless, amiable person who had done (the defendant) no wrong,” he added during a sentencing hearing at London’s Woolwich Crown Court.
After the killing, Mosquera traveled to Bristol where a cyclist spotted him on the bridge with a large red suitcase and a silver trunk.
Questioned by bridge staff about something leaking from the red suitcase, Mosquera told them it was oil.
When they shone their torches on the suitcases, he fled.
Bennathan said he was sure the defendant’s aim had been to “throw the cases full of body parts off the bridge in an attempt to dispose of them.”
Mosquera received two life terms which will be served concurrently along with a 16-month sentence for possessing child pornography.
Killer who dumped bodies in suitcases jailed for 42 years
https://arab.news/vgznc
Killer who dumped bodies in suitcases jailed for 42 years
- Sentencing him to life with a minimum term of 42 years, Judge Joel Bennathan said the murders had been “premeditated and thoroughly wicked“
- Mosquera took their bodies to the southwestern city of Bristol in two suitcases
Britain’s Starmer seeks to bolster China ties despite Trump warning
- “The UK has got a huge amount to offer,” he said in a short speech at the UK-China Business Forum at the Bank of China
SHANGHAI: Visiting Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Friday Britain has a “huge amount to offer” China, after his bid to forge closer ties prompted warnings from US President Donald Trump.
Starmer’s trip is the first to China by a British prime minister in eight years, and follows in the footsteps of other Western leaders looking to counter an increasingly volatile United States.
Leaders from France, Canada and Finland have flocked to Beijing in recent weeks, recoiling from Trump’s bid to seize Greenland and tariff threats against NATO allies.
Trump warned on Thursday it was “very dangerous” for Britain to be dealing with China.
Starmer brushed off those comments on Friday, noting that Trump was also expected to visit China in the months ahead.
“The US and the UK are very close allies, and that’s why we discussed the visit with his team before we came,” Starmer said in an interview with UK television.
“I don’t think it is wise for the UK to stick its head in the sand. China is the second-largest economy in the world,” he said.
Asked about Trump’s comments on Friday, Beijing’s foreign ministry said “China is willing to strengthen cooperation with all countries in the spirit of mutual benefit and win-win results.”
Starmer met top Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang, on Thursday, with both sides highlighting the need for closer ties.
He told business representatives from Britain and China on Friday that both sides had “warmly engaged” and “made some real progress.”
“The UK has got a huge amount to offer,” he said in a short speech at the UK-China Business Forum at the Bank of China.
The meetings the previous day provided “just the level of engagement that we hoped for,” Starmer said.
He signed a series of agreements on Thursday, with Downing Street announcing Beijing had agreed to visa-free travel for British citizens visiting China for under 30 days, although Starmer acknowledged there was no start date for the arrangement yet.
The Chinese foreign ministry said only that it was “actively considering” the visa deal and would “make it public at an appropriate time upon completing the necessary procedures.”
Starmer hailed the agreements as “symbolic of what we’re doing with the relationship.”
He also said Beijing had lifted sanctions on UK lawmakers targeted since 2021 for their criticism of alleged human rights abuses against China’s Muslim Uyghur minority.
“President Xi said to me that that means all parliamentarians are welcome,” Starmer said in an interview with UK television.
He traveled from Beijing to economic powerhouse Shanghai, where he spoke with Chinese students at the Shanghai International College of Fashion and Innovation, a joint institute between Donghua University and the University of Edinburgh.
- Visas and whisky -
The visa deal could bring Britain in line with about 50 other countries granted visa-free travel, including France, Germany, Australia and Japan, and follows a similar agreement made between China and Canada this month.
The agreements signed included cooperation on targeting supply chains used by migrant smugglers, as well as on British exports to China, health and strengthening a bilateral trade commission.
China also agreed to halve tariffs on British whisky to five percent, according to Downing Street.
British companies sealed £2.2 billion in export deals and around £2.3 billion in “market access wins” over five years, and “hundreds of millions worth of investments,” Starmer’s government said in a statement.
Xi told Starmer on Thursday that their countries should strengthen dialogue and cooperation in the context of a “complex and intertwined” international situation.
Relations between China and the UK deteriorated from 2020 when Beijing imposed a national security law on Hong Kong and cracked down on pro-democracy activists in the former British colony.
However, China remains Britain’s third-largest trading partner, and Starmer is hoping deals with Beijing will help fulfil his primary goal of boosting UK economic growth.
British pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca said on Thursday it would invest $15 billion in China through 2030 to expand its medicines manufacturing and research.
And China’s Pop Mart, makers of the wildly popular Labubu dolls, said it would set up a regional hub in London and open 27 stores across Europe in the coming year, including up to seven in Britain.
Starmer will continue his Asia trip with a brief stop in Japan on Saturday to meet Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
