The judge was scheduled to hear the arguments on the sentence in the afternoon, before pronouncing the verdict on the same.
There was tight security at the court given the sensitivity of the case and the track record of the accused.
Eight of the nine accused, all of them Muslims, were present at the court when the judgment was pronounced. Shahul Hameed, one of the accused, had died when the case was still in the trial stage.
According to the prosecution, Selvaraj, a traffic police constable, had stopped a vehicle carrying weapons in the communally sensitive Ukkadam area of Coimbatore city on November 27, 1997.
Later, three persons who had been detained by Selvaraj led an mob and hacked him to death.
This in turn led to indiscriminate attacks on Muslim homes and businesses, rioting, arson and police firing in several places.
This attack is also believed to be the main motive behind the poll-eve Coimbatore serial blasts in February 14, 1998, which claimed 60 lives.
