King papers pulled from auction

Belafonte claimed Mr King left the outline for his 1967 speech at his New York apartment

Three documents linked to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr have been withdrawn from auction.

The papers - including a handwritten draft of King's first anti-Vietnam war speech in 1967 - were expected to fetch $750,000 to $1.3m ($501,500-£870,000).

But King's estate had objected to the auction, claiming the seller - singer-actor Harry Belafonte - had "wrongly acquired" them.

Belafonte himself asked that the papers be withdrawn, Sotheby's said.

They were due to be sold in New York on Thursday.

Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968

Earlier this week Isaac Farris, chief executive of the King Centre, in Atlanta, said he believed the documents were part of a wrongly acquired collection.

He said: "The King estate is currently in conversations with Sotheby's to establish the truth."

Belafonte could not be reached for comment, but earlier told The Associated Press newsagency that the papers were given to him by King personally, or his wife.

Belafonte said he became a close friend of King in the mid-1950s and provided him with an apartment for his use on visits to New York.

Condolence letter

It was there, Belafonte claimed, that King drafted the first speech attacking US involvement in Vietnam.

He left the outline of the speech behind when he flew to Los Angeles to deliver it.

Also up for sale were scribbled notes for a speech King intended to give in Memphis, Tennessee, on 7 April 1968.

The notes were found in King's pocket after he was assassinated on 4 April 1968. Belafonte claimed King's wife gave the notes to a mutual friend who passed them on to him.

The third item was a condolence letter from then-US President Lyndon B Johnson to Mrs King, expressing sympathy over her husband's murder.

Belafonte said she had given him the letter.