Men Convicted In Malcolm X Assassination To Be Exonerated: DA

HARLEM, NY — Two men who were convicted more than 50 years ago for assassinating Malcolm X in Harlem will be exonerated, the Manhattan District Attorney's office said Wednesday, a stunning move that upends the official narrative about who was responsible for the civil rights leader's 1965 killing.

Muhammad A. Aziz and Khalil Islam, who maintained their innocence for decades, will both have their convictions tossed out on Thursday, the New York Times reported. The prosecutor's office said in an email that D.A. Cyrus R. Vance Jr. would move to vacate the convictions tomorrow, though it did not immediately name the two men.

Malcolm X was shot to death by three men at the Audubon Ballroom on Broadway and West 165th Street in February 1965, while he prepared to give a speech. One man, Mujahid Abdul Halim, was arrested at the scene, but Aziz and Islam — then known as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson — were not arrested until days later.

All three were found guilty in 1966 and sentenced to life in prison. The suspects were all members of the Nation of Islam, which X had publicly broken with the previous year.

Aziz, now 83, was released from prison in 1985 and later worked as chief of security for the Harlem mosque that Malcolm X once led. Islam was released in 1985 and died in 2009.

The men's exoneration came after a 22-month re-investigation carried out by the D.A.'s office, the Innocence Project and the civil rights lawyer David Shanies, according to the Times. They found that the FBI and NYPD had both withheld evidence at the time of the men's trial that would likely have acquitted them.

The investigation coincided with the release of a new Netflix documentary last year that presented new evidence suggesting that neither Aziz nor Islam were at the scene that day. Aziz, for example, said he was laid up at home from a leg injury, pointing to a doctor in the Bronx who testified that he had treated Aziz just hours before the murder.

Halim, the gunman arrested at the scene, confessed to participating in the murder, but testified that Aziz and Islam were not involved, instead pointing to other men who he said assisted him that day. Halim, also known as Thomas Hagan, was paroled in 2010 and is now 80 years old.

It is now unclear who else pulled the trigger that day, as the investigation does not point to any new suspects, according to the Times.

The D.A.'s office and Shanies, the attorney for the exonerated men, did not immediately respond to requests for details.

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