US cop who shot dead Australian found guilty of murder

A US police officer who shot dead an Australian woman in 2017 was found guilty of murder Tuesday by a Minneapolis jury.

Mohamed Noor, 33, who was fired from the Midwestern city's police force, was convicted of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

The jury, which was handed the case Monday, acquitted the former officer of the most serious charge of second-degree murder with the intent to kill.

Noor had testified in court that he shot Justine Damond, an Australian who had moved to the US to marry her fiancee, to protect his partner, because he had feared an ambush when responding to Damond's emergency call.

 

But prosecutors insisted that the shooting was unreasonable and contrary to police department training policy.