Neo-Nazi found guilty of murder

An American neo-Nazi was found guilty of murder on Friday for killing a woman when ramming his car into counter-protesters at a 2017 white supremacist rally that made Charlottesville a byword for racial violence under President Donald Trump.

In addition to first-degree murder, which carries a possible life sentence, James Alex Fields Jr, 21, was found guilty of five counts of aggravated malicious wounding, three of malicious wounding, and one hit-and-run count.

A jury of seven women and five men reached their verdict near the end of the first day of deliberations of a trial that lasted a little under two weeks.

The August 12, 2017 violence, which claimed the life of 32-year-old paralegal Heather Heyer and injured dozens more, turned the bucolic university city in Virginia into a symbol of the growing audacity of the far right under Trump.

The president drew broad criticism in the aftermath when he spoke of "blame on both sides," appearing to establish a moral equivalence between the white supremacists who came to protest the removal of a Confederate statue, and those who opposed them.

Sentencing will begin from Monday, with jurors given the option to recommend between 20 years and life for the murder conviction.