WASHINGTON, March 10: The leader of one of the largest Muslim groups has been found guilty in a March 2000 killing of a sheriff’s deputy and the wounding of another. Sentencing will begin on Monday in Atlanta.

The convicted person, Jamil Abdullah Al Amin, formerly Rap Brown, had joined the Black Panther group and later converted to Islam in the 1970s, becoming leader of the National Ummah, a group with several mosques around the country.

Al Amin, 58, was charged with attacking a police party that came to serve warrants on him for minor offences linked to him earlier. His defence pleaded he was wrongly implicated, and his case had become a cause celebre with black civil rights activists here and civil liberties groups abroad.

Al Amin’s trial was originally scheduled to be held last autumn but was postponed in view of fears that it might further inflame anti-Muslims feelings following the Sept 11 attacks.