American released after 43 years in solitary confinement

A US district court decided to release Albert Woodfox, 68-year-old, after 43 years in solitary confinement.

Initially, Woodfox was convicted in 1967 for armed robbery. In 1972, he was convicted of killing a guard during a prison riot and sent to solitary confinement.

Woodfox was twice convicted of the murder of a prison guard, but both decisions were later canceled. Now the judge has banned Louisiana prosecutors from seeking recognition of Woodfox guilty of killing a guard for the third time. Woodfox himself denied all accusations.

A court in Louisiana also took into account the prisoner's age and his poor health.

Human rights activists have repeatedly called on the US authorities to immediately stop holding Woodfox in solitary confinement.

According to representatives of Amnesty International, this is one of the rare cases in which a person in the United States was actually deprived of the opportunity to communicate with other people for such a long time. According to their data, the convict spent in a cell measuring two by three meters 23 hours a day.

In the same regime, another prisoner Herman Wallis was held in prison, who was also convicted with Woodfox for killing a warder.

Wallis died in 2013, three days after being released from prison.