A jury returned guilty verdicts in the trial of three white men accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery in 2020.

Allegedly believing him to be a burglar, Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael and their neighbour William 'Roddie' Bryan pursued Arbery through a south Georgia neighbourhood in their pickup trucks, before a confrontation in which Travis McMichael shot Arbery dead.

In a case that has become part of the campaign for racial justice in the US, the defendants have pleaded not guilty to all charges claiming they acted in self-defense.

Prosecutors have argued the men had no legal right to attempt to detain Arbery, who was unarmed and described by his family as an avid runner.

The three men face life in prison if found guilty of murder.

• Ahmaud Arbery killing: three men charged provoked confrontation, prosecutor says
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Civil rights advocates celebrate bill’s passage, which comes just over a year after the fatal shooting

Georgia lawmakers have approved a bill that would overhaul the state’s citizen’s arrest law, rolling back a Civil War-era statute one year after the killing of Ahmaud Arbery.

The state’s governor, Brian Kemp, is expected to sign the bill into law, which would make Georgia the first state to move toward repealing a citizen’s arrest statute. Georgia’s citizen’s arrest law, which was enacted in 1863 to allow white citizens to capture slaves fleeing north, and was later used to justify hundreds of lynchings, was cited by a prosecutor last year who initially declined to arrest Arbery’s assailants.