Two men acquitted of killing Malcolm X after new evidence was discovered

More than half a century after the assassination Malcolm XAfter decades of suspicion about who was responsible for the death of this civil rights icon, his two convicted murderers were acquitted on Thursday.

Manhattan Judge Alan Biben dismissed the convictions of Mohamed Aziz and the late Khalil Islam. Earlier, the prosecutor and the man’s lawyer stated that the re-investigation found new evidence and undermined the The allegations of these men and it was determined that the authorities had concealed some information they knew.

“The incident that brought us to court today shouldn’t have happened,” Aziz told the court. “I am an 83-year-old man and a victim of the criminal justice system.”

Islam’s sons Armin Johnson and Shahid Johnson felt distressed that their parents died before seeing the conviction reversed. Nonetheless, Amien Johnson said that his father would clear his name ecstatically.

“His reputation means a lot to him,” said his son, and now “we don’t have to be careful to protect ourselves, and we don’t have to worry about the consequences of anyone who thinks he might have killed Malcolm X.”

Aziz and Islam were innocent from the beginning in the 1965 murder of the Audubon Ballroom in Upper Manhattan and were released on parole in the 1980s. Islam died in 2009.

“There is no doubt that this is a case calling for basic justice,” Biben said.

Malcolm X has risen to fame as the spokesperson of Islamic countries, and he advised blacks to assert their civil rights “in any necessary way.” His autobiography co-written with Alex Haley is still a classic of modern American literature.

At the end of Malcolm X’s life, he parted ways with black Muslim organizations, and after traveling to Mecca began to talk about the potential for racial unity. This angered some people in Islamic countries who thought he was a traitor.

On February 21, 1965, he was shot to death when he started his speech. He is 39 years old.

Aziz and Islam, then known as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, and a third man were convicted of murder in March 1966. They were sentenced to life imprisonment.

The third man Mujahid Abdul Halim-also known as Talmac Haye and Thomas Hagen-admitted to shooting Malcolm X, but said that Aziz and Iraq Slam was not involved. The two provided an alibi, and there was no physical evidence linking them to the crime. The case depends on the witnesses, despite the inconsistencies in their testimony.

Halim was released on parole in 2010. On Thursday, he declined to comment through relatives. He identified some other people as accomplices, but no one was responsible for this crime.

According to a court document, the re-investigation found that the FBI and the police failed to produce evidence of major suspicion of Islam and Aziz.

The evidence included witnesses who could not identify Islam, implicated other suspects and groups, and described a gun assassin who was incompatible with Islam, and prosecutors said these people were carrying such weapons. Investigators also found an FBI file about a Halim who was identified as an accomplice to him after the trial, and it was consistent with other clues.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said Thursday that records show that the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered agents to tell witnesses not to reveal that they were informants when talking with police and prosecutors.

According to court documents, the records of the New York Police Department showed that there were undercover policemen in the ballroom at the time of the killing. The prosecutor apparently knew this fact before the trial, but did not seem to tell the defense attorney. An undercover police officer later testified in an unrelated trial that he had been a member of Malcolm X’s security team and slammed Halim with a chair—a blow and testimony from other witnesses suspected of the assassin’s trial Does not match.

At the same time, an eyewitness who has come forward in recent years told investigators that he had spoken to Aziz shortly after his home phone was killed. Aziz said from the beginning that he was at home with a leg injury that day.

“There is a final conclusion: Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam were wrongly convicted of this crime,” and it is impossible to retry this 56-year-old case in which all witnesses who testified Has died and the physical evidence has disappeared, Vance said. He apologized for “serious and unacceptable violations of the law and public trust” by law enforcement agencies.

The FBI and the New York Police Department had evidence of the innocence of Aziz and Islam within a few hours, but they ignored and suppressed the evidence. One of their lawyers, Deborah François, said she Worked on this case with civil rights lawyer David Shanis and the Innocence Project.

“The larger questions about how or why this happened are still unanswered,” said Barry Scheck, co-founder of Innocence Project.

The court documents narrated many hints and clues, but did not draw any conclusions about people other than Halim who might be involved.

The New York Police Department and the FBI said on Wednesday that they have fully cooperated with the reinvestigation. They declined to comment further.

New York Police Commissioner Juanita Holmes said on Thursday that if we had a responsibility to conceal information, she would feel sorry for Malcolm X’s family, Aziz and Islam.

For a long time, lawyers, scholars, journalists, and others have been questioning the conviction, and other theories and allegations surrounding the case have also emerged. After Netflix broadcasts the documentary series Who killed Malcolm X? At the beginning of last year, Vance’s office said it was getting a new look.

“If this murder case is resolved, it would be great, but it has not been resolved,” said Tamara Payne, co-author of the Pulitzer Prize winner Rise of the Dead: The Life of Malcolm X With her late father Les Payne.

“The damage has been done, but I hope… we learn from it,” Payne said.