US President Donald Trump has refused to apologize for a comment he made in 1989 about the Central Park Five who were wrongly convicted.
The Central Park Five included young black and Latino teenagers, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray and Yusef Salaam, convicted on allegation of raping a jogger in New York.
During a question and answer session at the White House on Tuesday, Trump was asked about a newspaper advert he bought which advised the state of New York to adopt the death penalty.
“You have people on both sides of that. They admitted their guilt. If you look at Linda Fairstein and if you look at some of the prosecutors, they think that the city never should have settled that case — so we’ll leave it at that” he said.
In the newspaper advert, Trump made clear his anger against those accused of raping the New York jogger, Trisha Meili.
“I want to hate these murderers and I always will. I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I am looking to punish them.”
The conviction of the teenagers was vacated in 2002 forcing the state to pay $41million. Their story was portayed by Netflix in the movie When they see us.