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By JEREMY HAINSWORTH
The Canadian Press

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VANCOUVER - Calling the crime "depraved and vile," a B.C. Supreme Court judge sentenced the man who set a house fire that killed five people in 2006 to 25 years in prison without parole Sunday.

A jury of nine men and three women found Nathan Fry, 20, guilty of five counts of first-degree murder.

Adela Etibako, 39, and three of her children: Edita, 12, Benedicta, 9, and eight-year-old Stephane died in the May 15, 2006 blaze. Bolingo Etibako's girlfriend, 17-year-old Ashley Singh, also died.

Bolingo, the sole survivor of the fire, leapt out an upper-floor window and suffered severe burns.

Fry was also convicted of attempted murder in the case of Bolingo Etibako, who spent months in hospital after the fire.

"In the matter of a few minutes, you caused the deaths of five victims, five people against whom you had no grudge whatsoever," Pitfield told Fry.

The judge called the crime "planned and deliberate, cruel and calculated."

Asked if he had anything to say, Fry said: "No."

Pitfield said Fry had shown no remorse for the deaths, no sympathy for the family.

Prosecutors alleged Fry set the blaze to get back at Bolingo Etibako, then 16, for implicating him in two stabbings earlier that year.

"Because he was willing to talk to police, you developed a dislike of him," Pitfield said.

The judge said Fry had called Bolingo Etibako his best friend and that the family had welcomed him into their East Vancouver home.

"This is the result," Pitfield told Fry. "These five individuals ... had come to this country from the Congo looking for a life of safety and opportunity.-You've left Mr. Bolingo Etibako in a situation where he's going to have to live with the memory of this terrible night," Pitfield said.

As Fry walked into court before the verdict, he mouthed what appeared to be the words "I love you" to his mother.

But as the jury foreman read the first guilty verdict, both audibly gasped. As Fry looked at the floor while the rest of the guilty counts were read, his mother dabbed tears from her eyes.

Before staggering into an elevator, she stood and sobbed, her face against a wall.

Family friend Lorne Hull said she's heartbroken.

"(It's) a total heart-wrenching scene to see her suffering," Hull said. "We think of the crime in terms of how it affects the victims but we don't see the other victims who are the families of the perpetrators.''