Brunswick (US), Feb 16 (AP) Two of the three white men convicted of murdering Ahmaud Arbery repeatedly used racial slurs in text messages and social media posts, an FBI intelligence analyst testified Wednesday in their federal hate crimes trial.

FBI agent Amy Vaughan led the jury through dozens of conversations that Travis McMichael and William “Roddie” Bryan had with others, identified only by their initials, in the months and years before the 25-year-old Black man's killing. The FBI wasn't able to access Greg McMichael's phone because it was encrypted, Vaughan said.

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In text and Facebook conversations with friends, Travis McMichael frequently used the N-word to describe Black people. In a Facebook conversation with a friend, he also shared a video of a young Black boy dancing on a TV show with a racist song that included the N-word playing over it.

He also said that Black people “ruin everything” and repeatedly said he was glad he wasn't a Black person, using a racial slur.

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Bryan also used the N-word, but his preferred slur was one that refers to a derogatory stereotype about a Black person's lips, Vaughan said. Over a number of years, Bryan exchanged racist messages on Martin Luther King Jr Day. In messages sent in the days surrounding Arbery's killing, Bryan was clearly upset that his daughter was dating a Black man.

Greg McMichael posted a meme on Facebook in 2016 saying white Irish slaves were treated worse than any race in the US but that the Irish aren't asking for handouts.

On the first day of testimony Tuesday, the jury heard from neighbours of the defendants who described how the February 2020 fatal shooting shocked them. They also watched graphic cellphone video and saw crime scene photos of Arbery's bloody body before hearing excerpts of interviews the defendants gave to police.

The McMichaels armed themselves and used a pickup truck to chase Arbery as he ran through their coastal Georgia neighbourhood on Feb 23, 2020. A neighbour, Bryan, joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael blasting Arbery with a shotgun.

No arrests were made until the video leaked online two months later.

Both McMichaels and Bryan were convicted of murder last fall in a Georgia state court and sentenced to life in prison.

All three pleaded not guilty to federal hate crime charges accusing them of violating Arbery's civil rights and targeting him because he was Black.

A jury of eight white members, three Black people and one Hispanic person was sworn in Monday.

Defence attorneys said there's no excuse for their clients' use of slurs but insisted that their deadly pursuit of Arbery was motivated by an earnest, though erroneous, suspicion that Arbery had committed crimes. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)