Colombian man sentenced to 42 years for murder and dismemberment of UK couple

LONDON (Reuters) -A Colombian national who murdered two men in west London and transported parts of their dismembered bodies in suitcases to southwest England was sentenced on Friday to 42 years in prison.

Yostin Andres Mosquera, 35, was convicted in July of killing Albert Alfonso, 62, and Paul Longworth, 71, at their flat in July 2024. Prosecutors said Mosquera had bludgeoned Longworth with a hammer and stabbed Alfonso to death after the pair had sex.

He then decapitated and dismembered both victims, placing parts of their bodies into suitcases and travelling to Bristol, southwest England, where he abandoned the luggage on the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

He had pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder but admitted to the manslaughter of Alfonso, claiming he had lost control after Alfonso killed Longworth and threatened his family. The jury rejected his defence and found him guilty of both murders.

On Friday, Mosquera pleaded guilty to three new charges of possessing indecent images of children.

Judge Joel Bennathan, who described the murders as “thoroughly wicked crimes,” handed down his sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum term of 42 years at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday.

“It was their tragedy that you, Yostin Mosquera, came into their lives and, on 11 July last year, killed them both,” Bennathan said.

“I accept there was an economic imbalance, which was the reason you committed these murders, but that does not amount to any sort of mitigation.”

(Reporting by Sam Tabahriti and Sam Tobin, editing by Alex Richardson)