14-year-old pleads guilty to killing Iraqi boy, 13, in US

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

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

Sanchez was 13 when Ameer was killed. He was charged as an adult, but the maximum sentence he faces because of his age is nine years to life in prison.

Prosecutors say Ameer was trying to get his stolen cellphone 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.

Prosecutors say the plea comes three years and one day after Ameer immigrated to the US.