Amazon pirates who killed yachting hero get 37 years

Six robbers who murdered the New Zealand yachtsman Sir Peter Blake after storming his boat on the river Amazon have been given jail sentences of up to 37 years each by a Brazilian court.

Sir Peter, 53, one of the most revered sailors in yachting history, was shot in the back resisting the pirates – known as "river rats" – last December. The gang had boarded his 119ft yacht, Seamaster, from asmall boat, planning to rob it. He tried to hold them off with rifle-fire.

The men were convicted of armed robbery and robbery ending in death by the regional federal court in Macapa, capital of Brazil's impoverished jungle state of Amapa, 1,800 miles north-west of Rio de Janeiro. The ringleader, Ricardo Colares Tavares, 23, who confessed to firing the fatal shots, was given the maximum sentence of nearly 37 years by the judge, Jose Magno Linhares Moraes. Five other assailants were jailed for between 27 and 37 years, and three were given suspended sentences.

Sir Peter, whose boat was anchored near Macapa, near the mouth of the Amazon, was planning to head out to sea the following day. He and his crew of 10 were on a worldwide expedition to monitor global warming and pollution for the United Nations Environment Programme, which named him a special envoy in 2001. They were returning from a two-month stay in the upper reaches of the Amazon and Rio Negro.

New Zealand was plunged into mourning after the death of the national hero who led a team that twice won the America's Cup, yachting's most prestigious prize. The Prime Minister, Helen Clark, flew to Hampshire – where Sir Peter had lived since the Seventies – for his funeral, and thousands of people attended a memorial service in New Zealand.

Ms Clark, who had visited Sir Peter in Brazil a month before he died, welcomed the verdict yesterday. "Although the verdict will not bring Sir Peter back, it will at least give the Blake family the consolation of knowing that his killers have been brought to justice," she said.

Sir Peter's brother, Tony, said the sentencing came as a relief. "There's certainly no less sense of grief for what happened to Peter, but it does bring a sense of closure to the family," he said. "Nothing can bring him back. He just had an incredible drive and energy, and that's gone."

The six men wearing hoods and motorcycle helmets boarded the Seamaster at about 9pm. Sir Peter went to the cabin, returned with a rifle and opened fire, wounding one bandit in the hand. Tavares shot Sir Peter twice in the back, and wounded two crew members. The gang fled in their boat.

The pirates confessed within days, but said they acted in self-defence. But the judge said Sir Peter had been faced with an "arbitrary and illicit" attack and dismissed the gang's claim that he fired the first shot. He said defence arguments that Sir Peter would be alive if he had reacted differently were "absolutely unacceptable, pure conjecture and vain speculation".