“No-one said ‘I’m making a citizen’s arrest today’,”as prosecutor lays the case against Ahmaud Arbery’s vigilante murderers

They “trapped him like a rat,” she said

Prosecutors argue racism key factor

In her opening statement, lead prosecutor Linda Dunikoski told the jury: “All three of these defendants did everything they did based on assumptions – not on facts, not on evidence.”

Ms Dunikoski showed an extended version of the mobile phone footage taken by Mr Bryan.

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“Mr Arbery was under attack by strangers with the intent to kill him,” she said. “The only thing Mr Arbery did was run away.”

“They didn’t simply follow Mr Arbery. All three ‘trapped him like a rat’ with their two pickup trucks,” said Ms Dunikoski, using the elder Mr McMichael’s own words.

She added that Mr Bryan tried to hit the jogger four times with his car, getting so close that Mr Arbery’s palm prints and T-shirt fibres were later visible on the vehicle.

Ahmaud Arbery, a jogger, who aspired to be an electrician, looked at a house under construction. Then, he was lynched by an armed gang of current and former police, investigators, prosecutors, and their relatives and neighbors