Image copyright AFP Image caption Hurricane Katrina caused wide-spread flooding and left thousands trapped in August 2005 (file photo)

A former New Orleans police officer has been acquitted in a retrial over the fatal 2005 shooting of a man following Hurricane Katrina.

David Warren was exonerated of a civil rights violation and a firearm charge in the death of Henry Glover outside a shopping centre.

The body was later burned in a car by another police officer, Gregory McRae.

Both Mr Warren and McRae had previously been convicted on charges related to the incident.

Mr Warren had been in custody since June 2010 following a conviction of manslaughter and a sentence of 26 years in prison.

'Policeman's worst nightmare'

He and another officer were said to be guarding a police substation at a shopping centre on 2 September 2005 when Glover and another man pulled up in a truck, came out of the vehicle and began running.

Mr Warren had previously testified that he shot Glover because he believed he saw a gun in his hand and feared for his life.

After the storm in August 2005, large swathes of the Louisiana city were flooded and thousands of desperate people were trapped, leading to widespread looting.

Prosecutors argued Glover was unarmed and did not pose a threat at the time he was shot.

An appeals court subsequently overturned Mr Warren's conviction and ordered a new trial on the grounds that he should have been tried separately from four other police officers facing charges in an alleged cover-up of Glover's death, according to media reports.

One of those officers, McRae, was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to 17 years in prison for setting a car on fire with Glover's body in it.

Following Mr Warren's retrial, his lawyer, Richard Simmons, described the shooting - involving a split-second decision - as a "policeman's worst nightmare.

"There's no winners or losers, there's just survivors," he told the media. "The benefit of the doubt has to go to the officer."