April 05, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 27, 1429

LONDON: Two teenagers were detained on Friday after admitting they killed a man in a row over a discarded chocolate bar.

Evren Anil, 23, died from serious head injuries after being punched to the ground after confronting the pair, who had thrown a half-eaten Lion Bar through the window of his sister Elif’s car in Crystal Palace, south London, last year.

The computer science graduate hit his head on the kerb and died in hospital eight days later after falling into a coma, the Old Bailey was told.

On Friday, his killers, Patrick Rowe, aged 17, from Tottenham in north London and 16-year-old Dejon Thompson, from Thornton Heath, south London were each sentenced to four years detention.

They had pleaded guilty to manslaughter and knife possession at an earlier hearing.

“Your yobbish and stupid behaviour escalated and a knife was produced and a punch was thrown at Mr Anil with such force that he struck his head and died,” Judge Anne Goddard told them.

“He was a decent, good young man with a first class degree. The loss to his family is impossible to describe. Their grief is unspeakable.”

In a statement read to the court at an earlier hearing, Elif Anil said her brother’s death had devastated their family.

She said their parents had split up and her brothers had needed psychiatric treatment as they struggled to come to terms with Evren’s death.

Evren graduated from Kingston University in London with a first-class computer science degree and had secured a job with IT firm Logica a week before he was attacked.

—Reuters