Teen guilty in murder of immigrant

A 14-year-old has pleaded guilty to killing a 13-year-old boy whose family had immigrated to the U.S. to escape the war in Iraq.

Jean Sanchez pleaded guilty in Erie County Court in Buffalo to second-degree murder in the slaying of Ameer Al-Shammari in May 2014.

Sanchez, who was 13 at the time, was charged as an adult, but because of his age the maximum sentence he faces is nine years to life in prison.

Prosecutors say Ameer’s cellphone had been stolen and he was trying to get it back when Sanchez knocked him down, tied him up with his own shoelaces, sodomized him and strangled him with the string from Ameer’s hooded sweatshirt.