Donald Trump pictured as he declared his wish to pardon Muhammad Ali Friday (Picture: EPA)
Muhammad Ali’s family have said that they don’t want Donald Trump to posthumously pardon him for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War.
Trump made the bizarre offer regarding the iconic boxer – who died in 2016 – Friday – only to be shot down by Ali’s estate soon afterwards.
The family’s rep Ron Tweel said: ‘We appreciate President Trump’s sentiment, but a pardon is unnecessary.
‘The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Muhammad Ali in a unanimous decision in 1971.
‘There is no conviction from which a pardon is needed.’
Ali, pictured receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush in 2009, was convicted for failing to sign up for the Vietnam War in 2007 (Picture: AP)
They spoke out after the president made the offer as he departed the White House for the G7 summit in Quebec Friday, telling reporters he was ‘thinking about Muhammad Ali’ for the latest in a spate of pardons.
Trump elaborated: ‘He was not very popular then, his memory is very popular now.
‘I’m thinking about that very seriously.’
Ali was sentenced to five years jail in 1967 after saying his Muslim faith meant he was unable to fight in a war.
He was able to stay out of prison by appealing his conviction, with a judge overturning it four years later.
Trump’s rejected offer comes days after he commuted the life sentence of drug running grandmother Alice Jones after being begged to do so by reality star Kim Kardashian.
And last month he gave a posthumous pardon to another boxer, Jack Johnson, who was convicted of taking his white girlfriend across state lines in 1913.
Johnson, who died in 1946, was convicted using a law originally intended to crack down on human trafficking and prostitution.
Source: Metro UK
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