(Washington) The government of Donald Trump made public “more than 230,000 pages” of classified archives on the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968 on Monday, despite the concerns expressed by the family of the leader in civil rights.
The American president ordered on January 23 by decree the declassification of government archives on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, as well as on those of his brother Robert F. Kennedy, known as Bobby, and Martin Luther King Jr in 1968.
In March, the National Archives released new classified documents on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy who upset the United States and the world, giving rise to many theories and speculations.
They did the same in April for that of Bobby Kennedy, father of the current Minister of Health of the Trump Administration, Robert Kennedy Jr, and Minister of Justice of the murdered Democratic President.
The 230,000 pages published Monday relate in particular to the FBI investigation, the federal police, the international hunt for the alleged assassin of Martin Luther King, or even on the testimony of one of his fellow prisoners, according to a press release from the US national intelligence director Tuls Gabbard, at the origin of the announcement.
The United States “ensures complete transparency on this tragic and decisive event in the history of the country,” she said.
But in a press release, the children of the famous civil rights defender are concerned about a possible embezzlement of the publication of these documents in order to “attack his posterity or the achievements of the movement”.
During his lifetime, Martin Luther King was targeted by a “disinformation and surveillance campaign” orchestrated by the director of the FBI of the time, the powerful J. Edgar Hoover, intended to “discredit his reputation and more generally that of the movement for civil rights”, they recall.
They also reaffirm not to believe in the guilt of James Earl Ray, a white segregationist condemned for this assassination, perpetrated on April 4, 1968 on the balcony of a motel from Memphis (South), where Martin Luther King had come to support scales on strike.
James Earl Ray died in prison in 1998.
