A truck driver has been convicted of fatally shooting 11 worshippers at a synagogue in the deadliest attack on Jewish people in the US.
Seven others were wounded, including five police officers, after 50-year-old Robert Bowers opened fire with an assault rifle and other weapons in Pittsburgh.
Bowers was charged with 63 counts, including hate crimes resulting in death and obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death.
During his weeks-long trial, jurors heard testimony from survivors and evidence of Bowers’ antisemitism, including posts attacking Jews made on a far-right website in the months before the 27 October 2018 attack.
At the US District Court in the Pennsylvania city, the jury convicted him of all charges.
The guilty verdict was not in doubt after his lawyers conceded at the start of the trial that he attacked and killed worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue.
He could be sentenced to death or face life in prison.
All 12 jurors must vote unanimously in order to sentence Bowers to death with the penalty phase set to last several weeks.
His lawyers had offered a guilty plea in return for a life term in jail but prosecutors refused, choosing instead to take the case to trial and pursue the death penalty.
Most of the victims’ families expressed support for the decision.
Prosecutors will try to show that aggravating factors were involved, making a case that Bowers carefully planned the attack and that he targeted vulnerable victims. Most of the victims were elderly.
