Nine former Nazis have been sentenced by an Italian military court for murdering civilians during the Holocaust.

The men, all of whom served as German soldiers, were convicted of killing more than 140 people in a massacre in the northern Italian Apennine mountains region. A further 24 were killed in nearby town.

The men were sentenced in absentia by a judge in Verona after a trial that lasted seven months.

Relatives of some of their victims were in the court room to see them handed out life sentences.