Mexican men found guilty of murdering Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson

Ensenada, Mexico: Three Mexican men have been found guilty of murdering Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Carter Rhoad during a surfing holiday in Baja California in 2024.

The parents of the two Australians, Debra and Martin Robinson, held hands as judge Raúl Hernández Arellano delivered his verdict. There was no jury.

They attended every day of the five-week trial in Ensenada, on Mexico’s Pacific Coast, and were due to leave for the US within hours, before flying home to Perth in a few days.

On Thursday afternoon (Mexico time), they sat through six hours of closing arguments while just a metre away from their sons’ killers, who sat in a row behind their lawyers wearing orange prison jumpsuits.

The men – Jesus Gerardo, also known as El Kekas, Irineo Francisco and Angel Jesus – were found guilty of aggravated homicide, aggravated robbery, violent robbery and violent vehicle theft.

The Robinson brothers and Rhoad disappeared in late April 2024 while they were camping in a remote surfing spot in beachside Baja California, a region also afflicted by drug trafficking and violent crime.

Their bodies, along with that of a local farmer, were found days later down the bottom of a well. They had been shot.

The prosecution successfully argued that the three tourists were victims of a robbery that went awry. The court heard the victims begged for mercy before they were murdered, and that the killers later mocked their pleas.

Jake, 31, was a doctor who was due to start a job at a hospital in Geelong when he returned to Australia. Callum, 32, was a talented sportsman who had played lacrosse professionally in the US. He was living in San Diego at the time.

More to come