Tim Blair

FINALLY, more than a decade

FINALLY, more than a decade on, at least some justice for the killer of Australian Jew Yankel Rosenbaum:

A US federal jury today convicted a black man in the stabbing death of an Australian Jewish scholar during a 1991 riot in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighbourhood that widened New York City's racial divide.

Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting scholar from Melbourne, Australia, was stabbed as a gang of blacks yelled, "Get the Jew!"

Today, after three trials in 12 years, Lemrick Nelson, 27, was found guilty by a federal jury of violating the civil rights of Rosenbaum. Ruling on a separate question, the jury found that Nelson's actions did not result in Rosenbaum's death.

As a result he faces up to 10 years in prison, rather than a possible life sentence.