Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Tuesday marked the anniversary of 40 years of solitary confinement for two former Black Panthers convicted of murdering a Louisiana prison guard.

Amnesty International delivered a petition to Gov. Bobby Jindal calling on him to remove the men from isolation in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. The petitions contained 65,000 signatures from people around the world who call the confinement inhumane.

Sixty-five-year-old Albert Woodfox and 70-year-old Herman Wallace were serving sentences for armed robbery in 1972 when they were charged and convicted with fatally stabbing a guard at the Angola prison and moved to solitary confinement.

Woodfox and Wallace have continued to deny involvement in the killing and say they were targeted because they helped establish a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party.

Photo: Herman Wallace