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Boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, whose wrongful murder conviction became an international cause celebre against racial injustice, died yesterday aged 76.
Longtime friend and carer John Artis said Carter had died in his sleep after a battle with prostate cancer.
Carter spent 19 years in prison for three murders at a pub in New Jersey.
In June 1966, three white people were shot by two black men at the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson.
Carter and Artis were convicted by an all-white jury largely on the testimony of two thieves who later recanted their stories.
“Just because a jury of 12 misinformed people … found me guilty did not make me guilty,” he said in a 2011 interview.
“And because I was not guilty, I refused to act like a guilty person.
“When I walked into prison, I refused to wear their stripes. I refused to eat their food. I refused to work their jobs and I would have refused to breathe the prison’s air if I could have done so.”