Trump administration releases files on slain civil rights leader

The administration of the American president Donald Trump published a mine of files on the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, including FBI surveillance files on the leader in civil rights.

An order imposed by the court has kept the FBI documents, totaling 230,000 pages, blocked by the public since 1977.

Many members of the King family had opposed the release. A declaration of his two living children condemned “any attempt to register these documents in a manner intended to undermine our father’s inheritance”.

King, a Baptist minister, was shot in Memphis on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39. James Earl Ray, a career criminal, pleaded guilty to murder, but then gave up his plea.

The two living children of King JR, Martin III and Bernice, who were informed in advance of the Liberation, said on Monday in a press release: “We ask those who engage with the release of these files to do so with empathy, restraint and respect for the continuous grief of our family.

“The release of these files must be consulted in their full historical context.

“During our father’s life, he was implacally targeted by an invasive, predatory and deeply disturbing campaign of disinformation and surveillance orchestrated by J Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).”

The press release indicates that the surveillance of the government is equivalent to “invasions of privacy” and “intentional aggressions against the truth” which refused the king “dignity and freedoms of private people”.

On the campaign track, Trump promised the Americans that he would publish files on the assassination of King and former president John F Kennedy.

He signed a decree in January in January, ordering that the documents of the two assassinations be declassified, as well as the files of the assassination of Robert F Kennedy.