'Jackson is a wonderful person'
2005-06-14 14:14
California - Michael Jackson's family on Monday made public their bitterness at the child sex trial he faced and said the pop star now needed rest after his victory.
Speaking hours after Jackson was acquitted of 10 charges, including four of child molestation, brothers Jermaine and Tito Jackson targeted their anger at prosecutor Tom Sneddon who pursued the case against the King of Pop.
Jermaine Jackson said the family had come through the trial because of its strength.
"We were strong before but we are stronger now. I dare anybody to try to stand up against us because we are very strong and that is what the family is supposed to be," he told CNN.
"We are all probably going to rest. We are all tired. This has been a long two years ... gruelling," he added in a telephone interview from the Neverland Ranch where Michael Jackson headed straight after the verdict at the court in Santa Maria, California, without making any public comment.
In the same interview, Tito Jackson said he believed the charges were "a very personal thing on Tom Sneddon's part" and Jermaine kept up the attack.
"Obviously it takes one person to tell the truth but it takes many to concoct a lie and that is what you saw there," said Jermaine, Michael's elder brother.
"The community up there in Santa Maria is a wonderful community, they are wonderful characters, but the people who are in power and who are in authority, boy, they need some work because what they have tried to do in the lies they put out there against my family and Michael was just ridiculous."
He condemned media polls on whether the public believed his brother was guilty, but added: "We just kept quiet because we knew all the time that justice was going to be served."
Tito Jackson told how he had hugged his mother while the jury foreman read out the verdicts.
"Everyone would be worried but as they kept reading the counts, the pressure was lifting off me. I was holding my mom tight and we cried through every count, but justice has finally been served and Mike is a free man.
Asked what his first words to his brother were, Tito said: "He told me he loved me and I told him 'I love you too'."
The two Jacksons remained evasive about the impact on the King of Pop however.
"It would be hard on anyone. Michael kept his strength and he is holding in there," said Tito Jackson.
Asked whether Michael Jackson would perform again soon, Jermaine replied: "Right now he is going to rest. But you know it is in his blood, it is in his bones."
He added: "What is important is that people know who we are and really know who Michael really is. And that is what is important.
"He is a wonderful, wonderful person and Neverland was never built to do what they tried to say. Neverland was built to bring happiness to the kids who are terminally ill and we just to give them a brighter day."