Monday, January 19, 2004
From Associated Press 1999 12 09:MEMPHIS -- The family of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. finally has what it has sought for years -- a jury verdict saying the civil rights leader was the victim of a murder conspiracy, not the lone gunman.
[...]
The Kings had sued Loyd Jowers, a retired Memphis businessman who claimed six years ago that he paid someone other than confessed killer James Earl Ray to kill King.
The trial, which began Nov. 15, for the first time gave a jury the opportunity to hear theories of a murder conspiracy in the 1968 assassination at a Memphis motel.
[...]
The suit named Jowers and other "unnamed conspirators" . . . William Pepper, the Kings' lawyer, told jurors that Jowers, 73, was part of a vast conspiracy involving the Mafia and agents of the federal government. He said King was targeted because of his opposition to the Vietnam War and plans for a huge "poor peoples' march" on Washington.
A cover-up following the assassination involved the FBI, CIA, the news media and Army intelligence, as well as many state and city officials, said Pepper, who represented Ray for years.
[...]
Juror Robert Tucker said the assassination was too complex for one person to handle.
He noted Pepper's assertions that King's police guard was pulled back shortly before the murder and that Army agents had King under surveillance at the time he was felled by a single rifle shot.
"All of those things added up, it wasn't just one guy acting alone," Tucker said. .....---
.....| Posted at 15:01 | PERMA-LINK |
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