Muhammad
Aziz
outside
the
courthouse
in New
York
after
his
conviction
in the
killing
of
Malcolm
X was
vacated
on
Thursday.
(Todd
Heisler/The
New York
Times) |
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Understood
today as
an icon
of the
civil
rights
movement,
at the
time of
his
death
Malcolm
X was
regarded
by the
overwhelmingly
white
media as
a
controversial
and
provocative
figure.
(Credit...Marion
S.
Trikosko,
via
Library
of
Congress) |
|
Judge
tosses
convictions
of 2 men
in
killing
of
Malcolm
X
By
MICHAEL
R. SISAK
and
JENNIFER
PELTZ
apnews.com
NEW
YORK -
More
than
half a
century
after
the
assassination
of
Malcolm
X, two
of his
convicted
killers
were
exonerated
Thursday
after
decades
of doubt
about
who was
responsible
for the
civil
rights
icon’s
death.
Manhattan
judge
Ellen
Biben
dismissed
the
convictions
of
Muhammad
Aziz and
the late
Khalil
Islam,
after
prosecutors
and the
men’s
lawyers
said a
renewed
investigation
found
new
evidence
that the
men were
not
involved
with the
killing
and
determined
that
authorities
withheld
some of
what
they
knew.
“The
event
that has
brought
us to
court
today
should
never
have
occurred,”
Aziz
told the
court.
“I am an
83-year-old
man who
was
victimized
by the
criminal
justice
system.”
He
and
Islam,
who
maintained
their
innocence
from the
start in
the 1965
killing
at Upper
Manhattan’s
Audubon
Ballroom,
were
paroled
in the
1980s.
Islam
died in
2009.
Malcolm
X gained
national
prominence
as the
voice of
the
Nation
of
Islam,
exhorting
Black
people
to claim
their
civil
rights
“by any
means
necessary.”
His
autobiography,
written
with
Alex
Haley,
remains
a
classic
work of
modern
American
literature.
Near
the end
of
Malcolm
X’s
life, he
split
with the
Black
Muslim
organization
and,
after a
trip to
Mecca,
started
speaking
about
the
potential
for
racial
unity.
It
earned
him the
ire of
some in
the
Nation
of
Islam,
who saw
him as a
traitor.
He
was shot
to death
while
beginning
a speech
on Feb.
21,
1965. He
was 39.
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
in
prison.
The
third
man,
Mujahid
Abdul
Halim —
also
known as
Talmadge
Hayer
and
Thomas
Hagan —
admitted
to
shooting
Malcolm
X but
said
neither
Aziz nor
Islam
was
involved.
The two
offered
alibis,
and no
physical
evidence
linked
them to
the
crime.
Halim
was
paroled
in 2010.
Through
a
relative,
he
declined
to
comment
Thursday.
He
identified
some
other
men as
accomplices,
but no
one else
has ever
been
held
accountable
for the
crime.
The
recent
investigation
found
information
in FBI
files
about
witnesses
who
couldn’t
identify
Islam
and
implicated
other
suspects,
Manhattan
District
Attorney
Cyrus
Vance
Jr. told
the
court.
The
files
showed
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,
Vance
said.
“There
is one
ultimate
conclusion:
Mr. Aziz
and Mr.
Islam
were
wrongfully
convicted
of this
crime,”
and
there is
no
prospect
of
retrying
the
56-year-old
case,
Vance
said. He
apologized
for law
enforcement’s
“serious,
unacceptable
violations
of law
and the
public
trust.”
Innocence
Project
co-founder
Barry
Scheck,
one of
the
lawyers
for Aziz
and for
Islam’s
family,
said the
review
also
found
the FBI
and
police
hid
evidence
from
prosecutors,
as what
he
called
part of
a plot
to
disrupt
the
Black
civil
rights
movement.
The
FBI and
New York
Police
Department
had
evidence
of
Aziz’s
and
Islam’s
innocence
within
hours
but
ignored
and
suppressed
it, said
another
of their
attorneys,
Deborah
Francois,
who
works
with
civil
rights
attorney
David
Shanies.
Biben
said the
case
“cries
out for
fundamental
justice.”
The
NYPD and
the FBI
said
Wednesday
that
they had
cooperated
fully
with the
re-investigation.
They
declined
to
comment
further.
NYPD
Chief of
Patrol
Juanita
Holmes
said
Thursday
she felt
for
Malcolm
X’s
family
and for
Aziz and
Islam
“if we
are
responsible
for
withholding
information.”
“I
hope
that we
never
revisit
a
scenario
like
this
again,”
she
added.
Attorneys,
scholars
and
others
have
long
raised
questions
about
the
convictions,
and
alternate
theories
and
accusations
have
swirled
around
the
case.
After
Netflix
aired
the
documentary
series
“Who
Killed
Malcom
X?”
early
last
year,
Vance’s
office
said it
was
taking a
fresh
look at
the
case.
As
news of
the
exonerations
reverberated,
even New
York
City’s
mayor
said the
public
deserved
more
answers.
“I
hope
this
doesn’t
end the
discussion,”
Mayor
Bill de
Blasio
said.
“For
millions
and
millions
of
Americans,
we still
need to
know who
killed
Malcolm
X and
who
ordered
it.”
But
the
prospect
is
clouded
by the
passage
of time.
Every
eyewitness
who
testified
at the
trial
has
died,
and all
the
physical
evidence
—
including
a
shotgun
used in
the
killing
— is
gone, as
are any
phone
records
that
might
have
existed,
Vance
said.
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