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Ned Kelly gets his final wish

Ned Kelly, the notorious Australian outlaw, has had his final wish fulfilled 131 years post-execution, as officials approved the release of his remains for burial alongside his family.

On Wednesday, Anthony Griffiths, a grandson of Kelly’s sister, revealed that Robert Clark, the Victorian state attorney general, has decided to restore his bullet-marked bones to his descendants to honor his last wish.

“This is truly welcome news,” Griffiths expressed to reporters.

“Like any family, we wish to lay our loved ones to rest. Our goal is to conduct a dignified funeral for him, as any family would do.”

In September, the headless remains of Kelly were finally identified, resolving a longstanding mystery.

While some view him as a cold-blooded murderer, others regard Kelly as a folk hero and a symbol of Irish-Australian resistance against British authorities for his fight against corrupt police and avaricious land barons.

After killing three policemen, he was apprehended in Victoria in 1880 and executed at Old Melbourne Gaol that November. However, his body vanished after being disposed of in a mass grave.

On the eve of his execution, Kelly wrote to the prison governor seeking “permission for my friends to have my body that they might bury it in consecrated ground,” as reported by the Melbourne Herald Sun newspaper.

Reporting suggests that he is likely to be interred in a small cemetery close to Glenrowan, where he met his end, and where unmarked graves hold the remains of his mother Ellen, several siblings, and other relatives.

The adventures of Kelly and his gang have inspired a multitude of films and television series.

Notably, Mick Jagger portrayed the lead character in the 1970 film “Ned Kelly,” while Heath Ledger took on the role of the bandit in a 2003 remake.

Additionally, he has served as the muse for several books, with Peter Carey’s “True History of the Kelly Gang,” which clinched the 2001 Booker Prize, being the most prominent.

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