Men wrongly imprisoned for murder of Malcolm X awarded huge settlement
Joe Harker
Featured Image Credit: GRANGER - Historical Picture Archive / REUTERS / Alamy
Two men who were wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of civil rights leader Malcolm X have been awarded millions of dollars in a settlement.
On 21 February, 1965, human rights activist and civil rights advocate Malcolm X was preparing to address an audience when he was shot in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.
The attacker was a member of the crowd, and after the initial blast two other men in the crowd also opened fire with handguns.
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Pronounced dead shortly after being rushed to hospital, Malcolm X's autopsy would find that he had suffered 21 gunshot wounds, 10 of which had come from the initial shotgun blast to his chest.
Three men were arrested for the assassination, Mujahid Abdul Halim, Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam.
When the case went to trial Halim confessed to being part of the assassination, but insisted that the other two men involved were not Aziz or Islam. Nonetheless, all three were convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Aziz and Islam were exonerated last year after a judge decreed that both men had suffered 'serious miscarriages of justice'.
A 22-month-long investigation by the Manhattan district attorney's office found that prosecutors, the FBI and the NYPD withheld key evidence which they believe would likely have resulted in both men being found not guilty by a jury.
Now the city of New York has agreed to pay the men $26 million in a settlement as recompense for their wrongful conviction.
Released from prison in 1985 and 1987 respectively, Aziz and Islam spent years behind bars for a murder they didn't commit, and even longer living with the wrongful charges.
According to the New York Times the settlement will be split evenly between the 84-year-old Aziz and the estate of Islam, who died in 2009 aged 74 and did not live to see his name cleared.
Nick Paolucci, a spokesperson for the New York City Law Department said the settlement could help give some justice to the men who spent so much of their lives punished for a crime they were innocent of committing.
He said: "This 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.
"Based on our review, this office stands by the opinion of former Manhattan district attorney Vance who stated, based on his investigation, that 'there is one ultimate conclusion: Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam were wrongfully convicted of this crime.'"