Three white men have been found guilty of the February 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery - a case that sparked a wave of racial justice protests last year, BBC News reports.
Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael, and their neighbor William 'Roddie' Bryan were each found guilty of murdering Arbery, an unarmed Black man, after chasing him in their trucks and shooting him dead.
The trio said they suspected Arbery - who had been jogging in a suburban Georgia neighborhood - had been involved in a series of burglaries in the area despite a lack of evidence.
On Wednesday, November 24, the jurors came to a unanimous decision and convicted Travis McMichael, who shot Arbery three times with a pump-action shotgun, on all nine counts, including charges of malice and felony murder.
Greg McMichael, who was armed with a magnum revolver but did not fire the weapon, was found guilty on eight of the nine counts including felony murder.
Bryan, who chased Arbery in a separate car and claimed he did not have a gun at the time of the incident, was found guilty on six of nine counts, also including the charge of felony murder.
The three men face life in prison and will be sentenced at a later hearing. The court will have to decide whether any of them are eligible for parole.
According to the Guardian, Ahmaud's father, Marcus, could be heard gleefully shouting out in the courtroom as the initial guilty verdict was read out. Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery's mother, started crying as the last guilty verdict was announced.
Following the trial, Cooper-Jones said to reporters outside the courthouse: "It’s been a long fight, it’s been a hard fight, but God is good.
"To tell you the truth I never saw this day in 2020, I did not think this day would come … Thank you, thank you for those who marched. Thank you to those who prayed."
She continued: "He [Ahmaud Arbery] will now rest in peace."
Marcus Arbery said of the verdict: "We conquered that lynch mob. We got that lynch mob."
After the verdict was announced, President Joe Biden referred to the killing as "a devastating reminder of how far we have to go in the fight for racial justice in this country."
In a written statement he added: "While the guilty verdicts reflect our justice system doing its job, that alone is not enough. Instead, we must recommit ourselves to building a future of unity and shared strength, where no one fears violence because of the color of their skin."