LEEDS, Jan 26: Three British teenagers were convicted of racially aggravated murder on Friday for killing a Pakistani immigrant in England. Graeme Slavin, 18, Christopher Murphy, 18, and Steven Utley, 17, were convicted for the ambush and murder of taxi driver Mohammad Parvaiz on July 22.

Michael Hand, 19, had pleaded guilty before the case went to the jury. Prosecutors said Parvaiz thought he was responding to a normal call, but was lured down a cul-de-sac where he was attacked in Huddersfield, 305km north of London. Parvaiz, who had three children, suffered a fractured skull and jaw, broken ribs and brain damage in the attack. Prosecutors said the ambush was in revenge for a clash between white and Asian gangs a few weeks earlier.

Parvaiz had driven some of the Asian youth to the scene of that confrontation, in which he took no part, prosecutors said.

Judge Heather Steel postponed sentencing, but indicated that Murphy and Hand could expect to serve life sentences. Michael Beeby, 16, and Jason Harris, 17, were acquitted of murder and found not guilty of an alternative count of manslaughter.

Beeby was convicted of violent disorder, a charge to which all the other defendants had pleaded guilty.—AP