WASHINGTON, Nov 23, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - Prosecutors and defense attorneys
presented their closing arguments on Monday in the racially charged trial of
three white men accused of murder in the southern US state of Georgia for
shooting dead a Black man after chasing him in their pickup trucks.

  Gregory McMichael, 65, a retired police officer; his son Travis, 35; and
their neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan, 52, are facing murder and other
charges for the February 2020 shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery.

  A graphic video of the shooting of the unarmed Arbery went viral on social
media and added fuel to last year's protests against racial injustice sparked
by the murder in May of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, by a white
police officer in Minnesota.

  The three defendants have said they suspected Arbery was a burglar who had
been active in their neighborhood and invoked a since-repealed Georgia state
law that allows ordinary citizens to make arrests.

  But chief prosecutor Linda Dunikoski said the three had no justification
for trying to detain Arbery and never told him they were trying to arrest him
as he jogged through the neighborhood on a Sunday afternoon.

  "None of the defendants saw Mr. Arbery commit any crime that day,"
Dunikoski said. "They assumed he must have committed some crime."

  The McMichaels, who were armed with a shotgun and a handgun, and Bryan, who
was unarmed, chased Arbery based on "assumptions and driveway decisions," she
said.

  "They made their decision to attack Ahmaud Arbery in their driveways
because he was a Black man running down the street," she said.

  - 'Under attack' -

  Arbery was chased by the men in their trucks until he was "trapped like a
rat," Dunikoski said, using a description that Gregory McMichael gave police.

  The jury was shown video of Travis and Gregory McMichael pursuing Arbery in
their truck, and Bryan chasing him in his own vehicle and filming the scene
on his cell phone.

  At one point, Arbery attempts to run around the front of the McMichaels'
stopped truck.

  Travis McMichael, who had gotten out of the vehicle, opens fire with a 12-
gauge shotgun. A wounded Arbery is seen struggling with McMichael before
being killed by another shot.

  Dunikoski, the prosecutor, said Arbery was "under attack" and "ran away
from them for five minutes."

  Arbery did not have a weapon, and "he's not threatening anybody," she said.
"He's just running away.

  "They attacked him and shot and killed him," she said. "They can't claim
self-defense."

  "They all acted as a party to the crime," she said. "But for their choices,
Ahmaud Arbery would be alive."

  There is only one Black juror on the 12-member jury hearing the case,
although about 25 percent of the 85,000 residents of Glynn County, where the
trial is taking place, are Black.

  - 'Horrifically tragic' -

  Jason Sheffield, a lawyer for Travis McMichael, said what happened was
"horrifically tragic."

  McMichael had reason to believe Arbery was responsible for the burglaries
in the area and had seen him at night 11 days earlier in a house on the
street under construction, Sheffield said.

  He said Arbery grabbed McMichael's shotgun during the fatal confrontation,
and his client was defending himself.

  "You are allowed to defend yourself," Sheffield said.

  "You are allowed to use force that is likely to cause death or serious
bodily injury if you believe it's necessary," he said. "At that moment,
Travis believed it was necessary."

  Kevin Gough, Bryan's attorney, said his client had "no reason to know" that
the McMichaels had guns, and his actions were "superfluous and irrelevant to
the tragic death of Ahmaud Arbery."

  The prosecution is to deliver its rebuttal to the defense on Tuesday, and
the case will then go to the jury.

  Before delivering his closing argument, Gough asked the judge, Timothy
Walmsley, to declare a mistrial, citing the presence of armed Black
protesters outside the courthouse.

  The judge denied the request, saying that "individuals have a right to be
outside" and there was no evidence that the jury had been exposed to the
protests.

  Gough had previously asked the judge to bar "Black pastors" from the trial,
claiming that the presence of civil rights leaders Al Sharpton and Jesse
Jackson in the public gallery was influencing the jurors.

  Walmsley dismissed the motion, saying anyone is welcome to attend the trial
so long as they are not disruptive.

  The closing arguments come just days after the acquittal of Kyle
Rittenhouse in another closely watched case.

  Rittenhouse, 18, shot dead two men during protests and riots against police
brutality in Wisconsin last year that followed the police shooting of a Black
man.

  The teen claimed self-defense and was acquitted of all charges on Friday.