EXCLUSIVE – Georgia Governor Brian Kemp says justice has been served after a judge handed a life sentence to the 26-year-old migrant from Venezuela convicted of killing Laken Riley.

“I’m glad justice was served, and it was swift and severe,” the governor said Wednesday in an interview with Fox News Digital, shortly after a judge in Athens County, Georgia, ordered Jose Antonio Ibarra, a migrant who had entered the U.S. illegally entered.

Kemp said the conviction and sentence were “no surprise” and emphasized that Riley’s murder was “a truly tragic set of circumstances. Tragic for that family and I certainly had them in my thoughts and prayers. I know people in Georgia and the surrounding area have the land.”

JUDGE ANNOUNCES SENTENCE IN LAKEN RILEY MURDER TRIAL

Family members and friends of Laken Riley react as Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard announces the verdict in the trial of Jose Ibarra in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Wednesday, November 20, 2024, in Athens, Georgia. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Riley, 22, a nursing student, was attacked in February while running on the campus of the University of Georgia in Athens. Ibarra was charged in connection with the murder a day later.

The judge, H. Patrick Haggard of the State Superior Court in Athens-Clarke County, decided the case, instead of a jury, at the request of Ibarra’s attorneys after they unsuccessfully tried to have the case moved from Athens.

A translator assists defendant Jose Ibarra with his headphones during his trial in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Riley’s killing was repeatedly highlighted by President-elect Trump during this year’s presidential campaign as he advocated the mass deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants in the country.

Kemp, who took aim at President Biden’s border security actions, argued that “the policy is outrageous. People have been killed not only in Georgia but across the country, and that is why our people elected Donald Trump our president, or at least our president. “That’s why we look forward to working with the administration, as we did during their first term, to secure the border and ensure these things don’t happen in our local communities.”

Laken Riley, a nursing student, was found dead on February 22 near a lake on the University of Georgia campus. (Laken Riley/Facebook)

And Kemp emphasized that “it’s just literally heartbreaking for this family, for her fellow students that she went to school with, for her friends, for local communities and really for the entire state.”

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Kemp was interviewed by Fox News Digital in Marco Island, Florida, minutes after being elected chairman of the Republican Governors Association.