Men Exonerated In Malcolm X Murder To Receive $36 Million

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Two Men Convicted For Malcolm X Murder Exonerated

Source: Spencer Platt / Getty

The City of New York has agreed to settle two lawsuits filed on behalf of the men who were wrongfully accused of the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X. According to NPR, both men will now receive $26 million for the wrongful convictions which led to them spending decades behind bars.

“Muhammad Aziz, Khalil Islam, and their families suffered because of these unjust convictions for more than 50 years,” said David Shanies, an attorney representing both men. “The City recognized the grave injustices done here, and I commend the sincerity and speed with which the Comptroller’s Office and the Corporation Counsel moved to resolve the lawsuits.”

Under the settlement, Aziz and the family of Islam will also receive an additional $10 million from the state of New York. Shanies said that he hopes the whopping reward will send a message that “police and prosecutorial misconduct cause tremendous damage, and we must remain vigilant to identify and correct injustices.”

Both men were victims of police intimidation, investigators revealed

In 2021, a Manhattan judge exonerated 84-year-old Aziz and the late Islam, who died in 2009, after prosecutors discovered new evidence behind the murder case. Investigators said that “witness intimidation and suppression of exculpatory evidence had undermined the case against the men.”

In a statement, officials from the New York City Law Department said that they hoped the settlement “brings some measure of justice to individuals who spent decades in prison and bore the stigma of being falsely accused of murdering an iconic figure.”

As MADAMNOIRE previously reported, for decades, historians have questioned whether Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam were responsible for shooting the Muslim minister. The case was eventually reopened in February 2020 after the Netflix documentary Who Killed Malcolm X argued that both Aziz and Islam were nowhere near the Audubon Ballroom when Malcolm X was killed during his speech.

The case was reopened by Manhattan district attorney Cryrus R. Vance Jr. in 2020 and lasted for nearly 22 months. After closing the case in November 2021, Vance apologized to both men for their wrongful convictions, noting how law enforcement had committed “serious, unacceptable violations of law and the public trust.”

Aziz and Islam served more than two decades behind bars for the alleged crime. Eventually, Aziz was paroled in 1983, and Islam was released in 1987. A third man named Mujahid Abdul Halim, who actually confessed to fatally shooting the activist, was sentenced to life in prison but was later paroled in 2010, Rolling Stone reported.

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