AFP/Washington

 

 

Chandra Levy

A Salvadoran man was sentenced Friday to 60 years in prison for the 2001 murder of government intern Chandra Levy, whose sexual relationship with a US congressman unleashed a media frenzy after her disappearance.

Ingmar Guandique, a 29-year-old illegal immigrant from El Salvador, was convicted last year of first-degree felony murder for killing Levy, whose romantic links to then-congressman Gary Condit of California initially fuelled suspicion that he killed her.

The 24-year-old Levy, who completed an internship with the US Bureau of Prisons, went missing while jogging in Washington’s Rock Creek Park on May 1, 2001. Her remains were not found until a year later.

Eight years later, Guandique was charged in Levy’s death after prosecutors alleged that he confided to a fellow inmate that he killed the California native.

Guandique was serving a 10-year prison sentence for separate attacks on women in the same park.

Lawyers for Guandique had argued he was being made a scapegoat.

One of the women Guandique had attacked testified in his trial for Levy’s murder, as did a fellow prisoner who said he heard Guandique confess to the crime.

“Guandique confided to another inmate that he had attacked Ms Levy in the park by grabbing her by the neck and dragging her off the trail,” prosecutors said in a statement on Friday.

The warrant issued for Guandique last year appeared to absolve Condit, who was repeatedly questioned amid a media frenzy in the US capital city but was never named as a formal suspect.

The married Condit admitted to the relationship, but the damage to his political career was insurmountable. He failed to win reelection, ending a 13-year career in the House of Representatives.

Guandique was sentenced in a District of Columbia court by Judge Gerald Fisher, who presided at the trial.