03 July,2012 03:38 PM IST | | Agencies
An Australian man was convicted today of killing his Fijian-Indian ex-girlfriend and her two younger siblings following what was reported to be the longest murder trial in Queensland state's history.
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Max Sica, 42, was convicted in the Brisbane Supreme Court of three counts of murder after 78 days of evidence and four days of jury deliberations.
He claimed to have found the bodies of his former girlfriend Neelma Singh, 24, her brother Kunal, 18 and sister Sidhi, 12, in the spa of their suburban family home in April 2003, but he denied killing them.
But jurors accepted prosecutors' case that Sica had strangled Singh in a fit of rage and killed her younger siblings -- bludgeoning Sidhi to death and beating then drowning Kunal in the spa -- to keep his crime hidden.
Sica continued to protest his innocence following the verdicts, telling the court: "I didn't kill no-one and the Queensland justice system and police are corrupt."
Sica had lived next door to the Singhs, a Sikh family from Fiji, for several years and had rekindled a relationship with Neelma shortly before her death by falsely claiming he had a brain tumor and had just weeks to live.
He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison for the murders, and will return to court for sentencing on Thursday.u00a0
