New York: A man convicted of gunning down a Sikh immigrant four days after the September 11 terror strikes in the US mistaking him for an Arab in Mesa in Arizona state, has been sentenced to death.

A jury in Phoenix, Arizona, which last week convicted Frank Silva Roque, 44, guilty of first degree murder in the killing of Sikh petrol station owner Balbir Singh Sodhi, also found that special circumstances exist under the state law, which warrants death penalty for Roque.

The jury had rejected the insanity plea put forward by the defence and had began considering whether he should be sentenced to death on October 7 after hearing from a psychiatrist and family of Sodhi.

Sodhi was shot and killed in front of his gas station by former machinist Roque, who mistook him for an Arab because of his flowing beard and turban.

Roque later fired at another gas station, which had a Lebanese clerk and the house of Afghan family, but no one was hurt in the two shootings.

The defence team has argued that the Roque suffered from mental illness and the terrorist attacks had triggered an episode of insanity. It was not a racially motivated crime, it contended.

But prosecution argued that it was a hate crime and he was consumed by hatred for Arabs or anyone looking like an Arab.

PTI