US President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a rally before his inauguration. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP/dpa
Keystone
In the days following his inauguration, US President-elect Donald Trump wants to release files on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 that are still under lock and key. "Everything will be released," said the Republican at a rally in front of cheering supporters in the capital Washington. The 78-year-old also promised to make available documents on the assassination of politician Robert Kennedy and civil rights activist Martin Luther King as well as "other topics of great public interest".
Keystone-SDA
20.01.2025, 09:47
20.01.2025, 09:48
SDA
The majority of the approximately five million documents, photos, videos, audio recordings and artifacts relating to the assassination have been fully accessible since the late 1990s, the US National Archives writes on its website.
Trump had already promised to publish the files during his first term in office. In 2017, some of the documents, which had been kept secret until then, were made public. However, then President Trump decided - mainly at the instigation of the US foreign intelligence service CIA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI - to keep some of the files under lock and key after these agencies expressed security concerns.
His successor Joe Biden released thousands more documents relating to the Kennedy assassination - but not all of them. According to US media reports, 99 percent of the documents are now publicly accessible with the latest release of 2023.
Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963 with several gunshots. Investigations by a commission into the crime came to the conclusion that the assassin Lee Harvey Oswald - who was later murdered himself - acted alone. Oswald was killed by a nightclub owner two days after the crime.
A number of conspiracy theories have persisted over the years - such as the theory that Kennedy's successor Lyndon B. Johnson pulled the strings in the assassination in conjunction with the CIA or that Cuba was involved.