-With AAP.
1. The haunting final video of Justine Damond that’s started a legal battle.
A legal stoush has broken out in the US over whether police video of Australian yoga instructor Justine Ruszczyk Damond naked and “gasping for breath in the last moments of her life” should be shown to the media and members of the public.
Hennepin County District Judge Kathryn Quaintance ruled last week the police body camera video should only be viewed by the jury, lawyers and herself during Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor’s murder trial.
A coalition of media organisations, led by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, challenged the judge’s ruling at a hearing on Friday.
Jury selection for Noor’s trial in Minneapolis began on Monday and will stretch into next week.
“I am trying to protect the pictures of this woman naked and her gasping for breath in the last moments of her life,” the judge said at the hearing, according to the Associated Press.
Noor, a 33-year-old Somali-American, has been charged with counts of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter and faces more than 40 years in jail if convicted.
He has pleaded not guilty on all charges, claiming self defence, the ABC reported.
Damond, a 40-year-old life coach and yoga instructor who lived in Minneapolis and was weeks away from marrying her American fiance, called police just before midnight on July 15, 2017, after she heard a woman’s screams and feared a sexual assault was taking place near her home.