A US police officer has been convicted of murdering an unarmed Australian woman who was shot dead outside her home.

Mohamed Noor fired at Justine Ruszczyk Damond after she called to report a possible sexual assault behind her house in Minnesota in July 2017.

Ms Damond, a 40-year-old life coach who was originally from Sydney, was dressed in pyjamas at the time of the incident and had approached the driver’s door of Noor’s police car.

Following a trial, Noor was found guilty of third-degree murder and manslaughter, but he was not convicted of the most serious charge of intentional second-degree murder.

He showed no emotion as the verdict was read out, while his wife broke down in tears.

Noor, 33, told the court that a loud bang on his police car scared his colleague Matthew Harrity and he saw a woman raising her arm appear at the window.

In his only public statement about the shooting, Noor testified that after he heard the loud noise, he saw fear in Mr Harrity’s eyes and heard his partner yell, “Oh Jesus!” as he went for his weapon.

“I fired one shot,” he said. “My intent was to stop the threat and save my partner’s life.”

However prosecutors criticised Noor for shooting without seeing a weapon or Ms Damond’s hands.

They also questioned whether the loud bang was real as neither Noor nor Mr Harrity mentioned it to investigators at the scene.

The death of Ms Damond, who was engaged to be married a month after the shooting, sparked outrage in both the US and Australia.

It also cost Minneapolis’ police chief her job and contributed to the electoral defeat of the city’s mayor a few months later.

Noor had been a police officer for less than two years before the shooting, having previously worked in property management.

The Somali-American was fired from his job after he was charged with Ms Damond’s murder.

Noor and Mr Harrity did not have their body cameras running when Ms Damond was shot but switched the devices on to capture the aftermath, which included their attempts to save her with CPR.

The bullet hit Ms Damond in a key abdominal artery, and a medical examiner testified she lost so much blood so quickly that even faster medical care might not have saved her.

Prosecutors sought to raise questions about the way police and investigators handled the aftermath of the shooting.

They played excerpts from body cameras worn by responding officers that revealed many officers turning them on and off at will.

One officer could be heard on his camera at one point telling Noor to “keep your mouth shut until you have to say anything to anybody.”

They also highlighted the lack of forensic evidence proving Ms Damond had touched the Noor’s police car.

Following the verdict, Ms Damond’s father said his family were “satisfied” with the jury’s decision and the verdict capped “a painful journey” following his daughter’s death.

John Ruszczyk said Ruszczyk added that the conviction was reached “despite the active resistance” of some Minneapolis police officers and what he called “resistance or gross incompetence” in the initial state investigation.

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