Two men convicted of Malcom X assassination exonerated

CHICAGO, United States

Two men convicted of assassinating Malcolm X were exonerated Thursday after doubts were raised in the killing of the civil rights icon.

Manhattan judge Ellen Biben dismissed the convictions against Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam, after lawyers for the two men said new, exonerating evidence turned up in a renewed investigation.

The lawyers said evidence indicated the men were not involved in Malcolm X's death and prosecuting authorities withheld key information they knew about the case.

A third man, Mujahid Abdul Halim confessed to the killing and was convicted. He had long said the other two were not involved.

Aziz and Islam always insisted on their innocence after the shooting which happened while Malcolm X was giving a speech in a New York City ballroom in 1965. The two men were paroled in the 1980s and Islam died in 2009.

"I'm an 83-year-old man who was victimized by the court system," Aziz said in court on Thursday. "The event that has brought us to court today should never have occurred."

Malcolm X was a prominent leader of the Black Nationalist Movement and spokesman for the Nation of Islam, based in Chicago. He took a harder line in his approach to civil rights than his contemporary, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He urged his followers to pursue civil rights "by any means necessary."

Later, just before his death, he split from the Nation of Islam and took a softer tone. Some in that organization branded him a traitor.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr opened a new look into the case against Islam and Aziz and a 2020 Netflix documentary, "Who Killed Malcolm X?" raised more questions about the investigation.

Vance determined there were gaping holes in the investigation regarding the evidence and in court he apologized to Aziz, his family and Islam's family on behalf of law enforcement "for this decades-long injustice."