(Reuters) – A Venezuelan man was convicted on Wednesday of murdering Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student whose killing became a rallying cry for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s harsh rhetoric about illegal immigration.
Jose Ibarra, 26, a migrant who entered the U.S. illegally, was found guilty on murder and other charges by Judge Patrick Haggard in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court. As he read the verdict aloud, Riley’s family members and friends could be heard sobbing, while Ibarra sat stony-faced.
Haggard heard the evidence and rendered the verdict after Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial.
Trump and other Republicans often cited Riley’s murder in claiming falsely that migrants who crossed the southern border illegally were responsible for a wave of violent crime.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
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