"An Act Of State - The Execution of MLK"
by William Pepper,
(ISBN: 1859846955, Verso January 1, 2003)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1859846955/104-1291585-3918336?v=glance&n=283155William Pepper is former attorney for James Earl Ray, and attorney for the King family.
He represents Pakistan as council for asset search and recovery work, trying to get back money that was stolen by prime ministers Buto and Sharif.
Excerpts from a lecture by William Pepper:
The King family had a long debate about whether or not to go through with this trial. Finally Coretta King stopped the debate. She said that in controversial situations she always asked herself what would Martin have done, what would he have wanted me to do, what would he have wanted this family to do. She said, without any doubt at all he would have said go and do it. And everybody else fell in line, because she makes those decisions for the family.
The trial was held in Memphis in 1999.
One year after filing we got the judge we wanted.
He was retiring. This was to be his last case.
It was a perfect situation for all of us.
This time it didn't take the jury seven hours,
it took them 59 minutes.
After 30 hours of testimony, 70 witnesses,
they came back with a verdict for the King family
which effectively exonerated James Earl Ray,
and ruled that there was a conspiracy to kill MLK,
involving agents of the government of the United States,
the State of Tennessee and the City of Memphis.
End of story, and you probably never heard of that verdict.
After the first 12 hours the trial didn't receive any publicity at all.
Some excerpts from the q&a:
Government officials are just foot soldiers for the real wealth and the power of transnational corporations.
The details and the control over public policy that these huge corporate entities now exert, means that elections in elected democracy is farcical in many parts of the world.
There is an interfacing with the military and with intelligence, because those are the ultimate protectors of the wealth of the rulers of the world.
Amnesty International has accused the Venezuelan commercial media of committing human rights violations because of their constant anti-government propaganda.
There are 2 major independent newspapers in the world: Le Monde and The Guardian.
"...if you ever get to read the Patriot Act, you know the end is there."
The senate vote on the Patriot Act was 99 to 1 (the one was Russ Feingold).
Some of the details revealed by the trial:
- there have been several assassination attempts on King before 1968
- commanding unit for the operation was the 902nd (military)
- involved were FBI, CIA, military, mafia
- primary shooter was civilian (mafia hit man hired by 902nd)
- 2 military sniper teams served as backup
- the actual hitman got away in a waiting Memphis traffic police car.
According to Pepper this is the most important assassination of the previous century, because MLK was the last of the 'freedom fighters' in the anglo-american world.
recommended reading:
John Pilger, "The new rulers of the world"
David Corton, "When corporations rule the world"
Carl Bernstein, Rolling Stone magazine, oct. 1977
video of the lecture2 hrs, 700MB
http://www.chomskytorrents.org/TorrentDetails.php?TorrentID=862----
also see
Democracy Now
Jury Rules King Assassination a Conspiracy
December 13th, 1999
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0414233&mode=thread&tid=5CNN
Ray's death won't end assassination controversy
Interview with William Pepper
April 23, 1998
http://www.cnn.com/US/9804/23/james.earl.ray.reax/The King Center
Complete Transcript of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination Conspiracy Trial
http://www.thekingcenter.org/news/trial.html
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