Dylann Roof has been convicted over the attack on nine black church members who were shot to death during a Bible study session in South Carolina last year.

Hundreds of people packed a sweltering Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston yesterday as it re-opened to worshippers just days after a 21-year-old white gunman shot dead nine black church members.

A 21-year-old white man has been charged with nine counts of murder for an attack on a historic black South Carolina church, with media reporting that he had hoped his actions would incite a race war in the US.

A gunman who killed nine people during a shooting spree at a Charleston church should get the death penalty, South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has said.

A white man suspected of killing nine people in a Bible study group at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, was arrested yesterday. Officials are investigating the attack as a hate crime.