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US man in 1964 race attack charge | US man in 1964 race attack charge |
(about 3 hours later) | |
A former Ku Klux Klan member has been charged with kidnapping and conspiracy in connection with the 1964 murders of two black teenagers in Mississippi. | |
James Seale, a 71-year-old former sheriff's deputy, denies the charges. | |
The dead men, Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, were long thought to have been abducted by the white supremacist group while hitchhiking. | |
The beaten and decomposed bodies of the two 19-year-olds were found in the Mississippi River two months later. | |
Mr Seale, who was arrested on Wednesday, appeared in court in Jackson, Mississippi, charged with two counts of kidnapping and one count of conspiracy to commit kidnapping. | |
Racial segregation | Racial segregation |
Prosecutors said that in May 1964 Mr Seale aimed a shotgun at the two black men while fellow Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members beat them with tree branches. | |
According to the indictment, Mr Seale and the others attached weights to the two men, took them out on the water in a boat and threw them into the river. | |
Their bodies were discovered two months later by the FBI during a search for three missing civil rights workers. | |
Mr Seale and a second man were arrested at the time. Consumed by the civil rights case, the FBI turned the case over to the local authorities, which threw out all charges. | |
The second suspect, church deacon and reputed KKK member Charles Marcus Edwards, 72, has not been charged. | |
During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, dozens of black people were killed by white people who wanted to retain racial segregation. | During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, dozens of black people were killed by white people who wanted to retain racial segregation. |
Few of the crimes were solved, partly because some of the perpetrators were protected by state and local officials. | Few of the crimes were solved, partly because some of the perpetrators were protected by state and local officials. |
Mr Seale has been jailed pending a bail hearing set for Monday. | |
If convicted, Mr Seale will face a maximum term of life imprisonment on each count of the indictment. |