January 15, 2000
Web posted at: 5:44 a.m. EST (1044 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As the nation prepares to honor the birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., Justice Department officials reviewing the circumstances of his death are moving into the final stages of their investigation.

"Don't expect any report before February," said a senior Justice Department official familiar with the probe.

Although Justice officials will not disclose what the report will say, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder last month appeared to rule out dramatic revelations such as a broad murder conspiracy.

"I would not expect that there would be any criminal prosecution out of our report," Holder said last month.

Holder said the information that the Justice investigators looked at during their probe included some of the information that was presented in a Memphis wrongful-death lawsuit where a jury did find evidence of a conspiracy.

Holder said in his recent comments that the King family is being kept informed of the Justice investigation.

Attorney General Janet Reno announced on August 26, 1998, that the Justice Department would conduct "an inquiry into certain allegations regarding the 1968 assassination".

Reno then said the inquiry would review allegations raised by former FBI agent Donald Wilson and former Memphis bar owner Lloyd Jowers suggesting that there may have been an assassination conspiracy broader than James Earl Ray, who pleaded guilty to the 1968 killing and then recanted.

Reno said federal law gave Justice the power to conduct an investigation to detect whether criminal activity took place, even if prosecutions are not possible because statutes of limitations have expired.

Reno in 1998 expressed the hope the review would "provide answers to new questions that have been raised about a tragedy that still haunts the nation."

However, the Attorney General has steadfastly refused to comment on the progress of the probe since it was launched.

In early December, the jury in the King family's wrongful-death civil suit found that the assassination of the civil rights leader was part of a conspiracy, not the work of Ray acting as a lone gunman.

The King family has long claimed that there had been a broad conspiracy, and hailed the jury's decision as the "final chapter" in the family's quest for justice.