Luther King murder claim

The FBI says it is taking "very seriously" a claim by a Florida church minister that it was his father who assassinated Martin Luther King, rather than James Earl Ray, who died serving a 99-year prison sentence.

The Rev Ronald Denton Wilson said his father, Henry, was motivated by being anti-communist, rather than racist, to assassinate King at a motel in Memphis on April 4 1968.

"I felt safer now because everybody involved is dead," Mr Wilson. He said it was a coincidence that he was making the announcement in the same week as the 34th anniversary of King's death. "Plus, I wanted to cleanse my soul."

Ray confessed to the killing. However, he quickly recanted, maintaining his innocence until his death in 1998.

Mr Wilson said Ray had been framed, but he had stayed silent because "I was sworn never to bring it up. I wasn't going to turn Dad in". His father died from emphysema in 1990, he said. He did not clarify why he had waited 12 years.

Rev Wilson's wife, Jan, said the FBI had interviewed her husband for several hours. She said: "My husband's daddy was not a racist, never a racist, because he's Cherokee Indian ... He believed Martin Luther King was a communist ... [The FBI] asked if my husband thought his dad was having delusions, but he doesn't."

Mr Wilson is hardly the first to come forward with an alternative story surrounding the murder, but this time the FBI seems to be lending some credence to his version of events, although the case had not yet reached the status of a full investigation, he said.

Many people, King's own family among them, have argued that a still-undiscovered conspiracy was behind his murder in Memphis. He was visiting the city to support striking sanitation workers.

So far, Mr Wilson has produced no documentary or material evidence to support his claims. He says he can remember attending meetings between his father and two co-conspirators.