LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A jury on Wednesday convicted a former leader of an Asian street gang of eight murders committed in the 1990s along with another 10 counts of attempted murder.

Marvin Mercado committed the killings in Los Angeles and surrounding areas as a member of the Asian Boyz, and then fled to the Philippines when police cracked down on his gang.

The 37-year-old was living under an assumed name when he was arrested in the Philippines in 2007 and sent to Los Angeles to face trial.

“I told you I would try to show you a man who would try to erase who he is,” Hoon Chun, a deputy district attorney, told jurors in his closing argument. “But don’t let him fool you. It may be justice delayed, but it’s still justice.”

The jury deliberated about a week before reaching the verdict. On Tuesday, jurors will convene to decide to recommend the death sentence or life in prison for Mercado.

All the murders occurred in 1995 and 1996. Prosecutors said that in all the killings Mercado took either a direct role or aided fellow gang members, in one instance being the driver in a car-to-car shooting that killed three victims mistaken for members of a Taiwanese gang.

The jury convicted Mercado of killing another man in a brutal home invasion and also found him guilty on 10 counts of attempted murder, all of them dating from 1995.

Mercado was a fugitive when seven members of his gang were tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 1999.

Donald Calabria, one of Mercado’s attorneys, questioned the credibility of four prosecution witnesses granted immunity in exchange for their testimony. “Testimony is only as good as the person giving it,” he said.