United States: a federal jury recognizes the racist dimension of the murder of Ahmad Arbery

Attorney Benjamin Crump surrounded by the parents of Ahmaud Arbery, Wanda Cooper-Jones and Marcus Arbery after the verdict, Tuesday, February 22, 2022, outside the federal courthouse in Brunswick, Ga. AP - Lewis Levine

Text by: RFI Follow

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The three white Americans had previously been sentenced to life in prison by a Georgia court for chasing and killing Ahmad Arbery, a black jogger, in the southern United States.

But they were tried this time by a federal court responsible for proving the racist dimension of their crime.

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With our correspondent in Miami, 

On the stand, witnesses came forward recounting their racist interactions in the past with the three killers of

.

FBI investigators also unearthed their racist comments sent by text message or posted on social networks.

These excerpts prove in particular that Travis McMichael, the author of the fatal gunshot, used to use the "N Word", that is to say the word nigger, or that of monkey, savage or even subhuman to refer to African Americans.

The FBI also produced messages from William Bryan, the author of the murder video, prohibiting his daughter from having a relationship with a black man.

The three white men had previously been

for the murder of Arbery, who became one of the emblems of the Black Lives Matter movement, but their first trial in the local justice of Georgia only scratched the surface of their racist motivations. .

A verdict hailed by the Minister of Justice

The objective of this second trial, launched by the Ministry of Justice, was on the contrary to prove that the 25-year-old black jogger was killed because of his skin color.

And this was confirmed by the jury after four hours of deliberation.

Sign of its importance: this verdict was immediately welcomed by the Minister of Justice Merrick Galand who promises to use all his resources to fight hate crimes in the United States.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland reacted to the three white men being found guilty of committing federal hate crimes and other offenses in the 2020 killing of Ahmaud Arbery.

'I cannot imagine the pain that a mother feels,' Garland said https://t.co/lQKgjqBbix pic.twitter.com/xuDo8senu3

— Reuters (@Reuters) February 22, 2022

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• United States

• Racism

• Justice

• Crime