Jury Backs King Conspiracy Theory

[Gold9472]

Jury backs King conspiracy theory
King's family believes more than one person was behind his murder

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/556289.stm

(Gold9472: I saw that Representative McKinney mentioned this during her Alex Jones interview, and I honestly had never heard of this.)

Wednesday, 8 December, 1999, 23:05 GMT

A US jury has found that the civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King Junior was the victim of a murder conspiracy and not a lone assassin, when he was shot dead over 30 years ago.

The King family has won a wrongful death lawsuit it had brought against Loyd Jowers, a retired Memphis businessman, who claimed that he paid someone other than James Earl Ray to shoot Dr King.

James Earl Ray confessed shortly after the murder in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968 but later recanted saying he had been set up.

His confession was upheld eight times by state and federal courts. He died in prison last year.

However, the aim of the King family has been to find evidence of a conspiracy and so lend support to their call for a new investigation into the murder.

The decision on Wednesday by the jury of six black people and six white to find against Loyd Jowers was just what they were hoping for.

The jury awarded the Kings just $100 in damages. The family had asked for a token amount in the wrongful-death lawsuit because what they wanted most was for the jury to find evidence of a conspiracy and lend support to their call for a new investigation into the killing.

"If we know the truth, we can be free and go on with our lives," said Dr King's widow, Coretta Scott King.

Television claim
The King family filed a wrongful death lawsuit last year against Mr Jowers, who said on television in 1993 that he hired the killer of the civil rights activist.

Mr Jowers has refused to name the person he believes murdered Dr King, but insists it was not James Earl Ray.

Dr King was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968.

Mr Jowers, who owned a restaurant on the ground floor of a building from where the fatal shot was fired, said he was paid $100,000 to hire the killer.

Mr Jowers has alleged that the fatal shot was fired from behind the restaurant and that the killer handed him the rifle moments after the assassination.

He has said he gave the weapon to an unidentified conspirator the next day.

[Partridge]

I'm currently downloading a film called An Act of State: The Execution of MLK (based on this book published by Verso in 2003) - should be interesting.

Also, Ralph Schoeneman (from Taking Aim and regular guest on Guns & Butter and Cloak & Dagger) recently talked about the subjects of the MLK and Malcolm executions for a WBAI fundraiser.

And here's a fascinating interview with Dr. Manning Marable about the murder of Malcolm from Democracy Now last February. And a lecture he gave on the same subject to the Malcolm X Project at Columbia Uni.

To paraphrase H Rap Brown, state assassination is as American as apple pie. Or to quote Public Enemy, "King and X, they got rid of both. Story untold, true, but unknown".

[Partridge]

And here's Democracy Now's report on the above mentioned court case.

[Gold9472]

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