FIFTY YEARS ago this week –- on June 8, 1968 –- the suspected assassin of Dr Martin Luther King Jr was arrested in Britain. It can now be revealed that the British Government's Minister for the Home Office embarked on an audacious cover-up, which eventually involved the office of the nation's Prime Minister. Newly-obtained documents show that the UK's Home Secretary James Callaghan -– pictured right -- subverted legal processes and concealed evidence of police corruption in his haste to get suspect James Earl Ray out of the country. Callaghan's actions were intended to placate US President Lyndon Johnson during a decade of great political strain between the two men's nations. A decade later, in 1978, Callaghan had become Prime Minister of the UK and -- by a twist of fate -- was confronted with the consequences of his earlier actions when the USA launched a new Congressional inquiry into Dr King's murder. Privately, British officials believed the Congressional inquiry was being stage-managed in order to pacify the US public and subdue a threat to the social and political stability of the United States themselves. And so Callaghan found himself forced to mount a second and far bigger cover-up to aid the UK's greatest strategic ally once again.

The Very Long Arm of the Law

BY JUNE 1968, Dr King -- pictured left -- had been dead for over two months and there was still no sign of his assassin. The only official suspect, a 40-year-old US citizen called James Earl Ray, had slipped through the FBI's fingers. But shortly before lunchtime on June 8th, Ray was inexplicably stopped and searched while queuing at London's Heathrow Airport.

He was arrested for possession of a 0.38-calibre pistol (with ammunition) and a forged passport and was soon in custody at Wandsworth Prison, London, to await his trial. The USA immediately applied to have him extradited. But when the US extradition request came before a British court, something strange happened.

Ray was transported from Wandsworth Prison to appear in person at the hearing, but testified that the police were inventing charges against him in order to justify his extradition. Specifically, Ray was alleged to have made racist remarks, overheard by one of his guards, which provided “reasonable grounds for suspicion” that Ray had indeed shot King.

Years later, Ray told author William Bradford Huie that:

"[Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Thomas] Butler said I made a statement (oral) [while in prison]. I denied this in open court as I had not made any statement. When Mr Butler returned me to the prison after the hearing, I wrote a letter (reg[istered]) to the following official: Mr James Callaghan, Home Secretary, House of Commons, London, England. I asked Mr Callaghan to bar Mr Butler from having any further contact with me, as it was my belief that he was lying about me in court in regards to a statement at the behest of the US Attorney-General's office. (I never did receive an answer. Would it be possible to receive a duplicate of that letter from Mr Callaghan's office?)" (Emphasis supplied)

Not only did Ray deny that he had made the remarks that were being treated as damning evidence against him, he had written to the Home Secretary himself, to lodge his protest. But as Huie's account makes clear, Ray's letter to Callaghan was swallowed up in silence.

That may have been the last Ray heard concerning his complaints of police corruption, but his letter had dramatic behind-the-scenes consequences.

For the time being, however, Ray stayed in Wandsworth Prison, Butler stayed in charge of the police investigation, and the US extradition warrant was granted. Who was ever going to believe James Earl Ray's word over Chief Superintendent Butler's?

Perverting the Course of Justice