Former world middleweight boxing champion Carlos Monzon was convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Monzon, champion from 1970 to 1977 and considered the best boxer Argentina ever produced, listened impassively as the three-member tribunal's verdict and sentence were read Monday.Defense attorneys for the 47-year-old ex-prizefighter said they would appeal the sentence to the Supreme Court of the province of Buenos Aires.
"This trial has just begun," said Patricia Perello, one of Monzon's lawyers.
Monzon has been held without bail since Feb. 14, 1988, when he and his 32-year-old wife, Alicia Muniz, fell from a second floor-balcony.
Muniz died of a concussion and Monzon suffered fractured ribs.
Medical experts testified Muniz was beaten and strangled to the point of unconsciousness before she fell.
After the sentencing, about 150 Monzon fans angered by the outcome attacked an attorney for the Muniz family, Rodolfo Vega Lecich, beating him and throwing sticks and stones at him, according to the news agency Noticias Argentinas.
"Go get him, Monzon," the crowd chanted.
Police formed a human wedge around the besieged lawyer and escorted him from the courthouse in Mar del Plata, a seaside resort 250 miles south of Buenos Aires that was the site of the crime and the trial.