"We were children": The Central Park Five's Yusef Salaam on their 25 year fight for justice

For 25 years Yusef Salaam has been fighting for justice over a gross miscarriage of justice. Mr Salaam is one of the Central Park Five, a group of five black and Hispanic men who spent years in prison wrongly convicted of the brutal rape of a New York jogger. They were all teenagers when they were found guilty of the crime. Late last week New York City approved a $40 million settlement with the men.

Three of the Central Park Five speaking in New York after their settlement is approved, Raymond Santana (L) Kevin Richardson (Centre) and Yusef Salaam (R) (Photo: Reuters)

In April 1989 Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Kharey Wise, Anton McCray and Yusef Salaam were rounded up and taken to a New York police station, charged with the rape and beating of 28-year-old jogger, Trisha Meili. They were aged between 14 and 16 at the time, 4 of them confessed to the crime. The men say they confessed because of police intimidation and because they were so young.

Yusef Salaam did not confess but understands why the rest of the group did. "If the hell I was going through was indicative of the hell they were going through," Mr Salaam explains to guest host, Susan Bonner, "that's what causes false confessions in the first place." All of the men retracted their confessions after they left the police station.


Yusef Salaam on the way to his trial in 1990 (Photo: Getty Images)

At the time of the trial there was a huge media frenzy around the case. Despite there being no DNA evidence connecting the teenagers to the rape and major inconsistencies in their confessions, all five were convicted and sent to prison for years.

"After this happened to me I began to call it the criminal system of injustice", Yusef Salaam tells Susan, "These news stories are painting the picture you are guilty and you have to prove yourself innocent, whereas in the law it says you are innocent until you are proven guilty".  

In 2002 the men's convictions were overturned after a convicted rapist, Matias Reyes, confessed to the crime.  For the past 12 years they have been battling to get compensation, and now New York has agreed to a settlement.    

"This settlement really brings a period to the end of this run on sentence," Mr Salaam says to  Susan, "It gives us the opportunity to think about new things to do as opposed to constantly getting up every day with our gloves on thinking about fighting the battle that we've been fighting for so long."

In 2012 filmmaker Ken Burns made a documentary about the Central Park Five. The trailer is below: