CHICAGO
A prosecutor says a former top Chicago police officer "shamed" his uniform and badge by allegedly covering up the torture of murder suspects.
A federal indictment accuses former police Lt. Jon Burge of perjury and obstruction of justice, for denying that he and detectives under his command had tortured people suspected of murder.
The denial came in 2003, when Burge was questioned in a civil rights lawsuit filed by a man who said Burge and other detectives had tortured him. Madison Hobley said the officers had covered his head with a typewriter cover until he couldn't breathe.
Hobley was suspected of setting a fire that killed seven people, including his wife and son. He says a confession that was introduced at his trial was fabricated by police. He was convicted and spent 13 years on death row, but was pardoned in 2003.
Burge was arrested this morning at his Florida home. The arrest caps a long controversy over allegations that beatings, electric shocks and death threats were used against suspects.
The allegations contributed to the decision by Illinois Governor George Ryan in 1993 to empty the state's death row.
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