Klansman jailed for 1963 church bomb murders
A former Ku Klux Klansman has been convicted of murder for the 1963 Alabama church bombing that killed four black girls.
Thomas Blanton Jr, 62, was accused of helping other Klansmen plant a powerful bomb that went off at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 15.
Blanton was immediately sentenced to life in prison.
During the trial, US Attorney Doug Jones called Blanton a vile racist who helped plant the bomb at the church in response to months of demonstrations in which black Americans sought to boost their civil rights in a segregationist society.
Assistant US Attorney Robert Posey added: "The defendant didn't care who he killed as long as he killed someone and as long as that person was black.
"These children must not have died in vain. Don't let the deafening blast of his bomb be what's left ringing in our ears."
Defence lawyer John Robbins said the government relied on murky tapes of his client secretly recorded by the FBI and proved only that Blanton was once a foul-mouthed segregationist, not a bomber.
Blanton did not testify but repeatedly said he is innocent.
Blanton was among a group of Klansmen identified as suspects within weeks, though the US Justice Department later concluded that prosecution was blocked by then-FBI Director J Edgar Hoover.
The FBI planted a hidden microphone in Blanton's apartment in 1964 and taped his conversations with Mitchell Burns, a fellow member of the racist Ku Klux Klan group who later became an informant.
