CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- A 28-year-old man has been sentenced to 45 years in prison for killing an Iraqi whose body was found stuffed in a trunk at the bottom of a South Carolina creek.
The Post and Courier of Charleston reports a jury convicted Jeffrey Hermann on Thursday of fatally shooting 31-year-old Ala Hassan Sarhan in 2000.
Saran came to America as a political refugee from Iraq in 1992. He eventually moved to Ladson.
Authorities believe Saran was killed over a debt and the money and drugs he was known to carry.
His remains weren't found until last year. Prosecutors said a man nervous about his arrest on a traffic violation told authorities about the killing. He led police to the car in about 15 feet of water in McClellanville, about 30 miles northeast of Charleston.
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