A former Alabama politician whose daughter died in a racist church bombing in 1963 has been released from a prison medical facility after a judge sided with an Obama administration call to free him.
Peggy Sanford is a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney in Birmingham. She said that Chris McNair was released from prison hours after U.S. District Judge Lynwood Smith issued her ruling.
The U.S. Justice Department sought the release of the 87-year-old McNair on grounds of compassion.
McNair was part of the scandal-plagued Jefferson County Commission that made deals resulting in a then-record municipal bankruptcy over more than $4 billion in debts.
He is the father of Denise McNair, one of the four black girls killed when Ku Klux Klansmen bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.