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Two Madagascans were sentenced to hard labour for life Monday over the murder of a French couple whose bodies were discovered badly mutilated in 2012.

The criminal court found the two guilty in the killings of Gerald Fontaine and his pregnant wife Johanna Delahaye, who owned a restaurant in southwestern Madagascar.

The couple had gone by quad bike to a beach to swim but one of the lawyers for their families said Delahaye’s body was later found “almost decapitated” while her husband had “cut limbs”.

In sentencing Victorien Lahiniriko and Regis Alain to hard labour for life, the criminal court in the town followed the call of prosecutors.

Eight others who had been suspected of complicity to murder were acquitted.