2 men found guilty in Malcolm X assassination expected to have convictions thrown out
Nearly 57 years after the assassination of Malcolm X in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance is moving to vacate the convictions of two of the men convicted as accomplices, his office said Wednesday.
2021-11-17 20:44:23 - VI News Staff
Muhammad Aziz, now 83 and previously known as Norman Butler, spent 22 years in prison before he was paroled in 1985. A co-defendant who also maintained his innocence, Khalil Islam, died in 2009. Confessed assassin Thomas Hagan had long said neither man participated in killing Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965.
"The events that led to my exoneration should never have occurred; those events were and are the result of a process that was corrupt to its core - one that is all too familiar - even in 2021," Aziz said in a statement Wednesday. "While I do not need a court, prosecutors, or a piece of paper to tell me I am innocent, I am glad that my family, my friends, and the attorneys who have worked and supported me all these years are finally seeing the truth we have all known, officially recognized."
Vance's office, along with the Innocence Project and civil rights attorney David Shanies, began reexamining the investigation last year.
"The assassination of Malcolm X was a historic event that demanded a scrupulous investigation and prosecution but, instead, produced one of the most blatant miscarriages of justice that I have ever seen," Barry Scheck with the Innocence Project said in a statement Wednesday.
Vance, Shanies Law and Innocence Project will file a joint motion on Thursday to vacate the 1966 convictions.
"The joint motion is the culmination of a collaborative reinvestigation of the case which began in January 2020 and unearthed new evidence of Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam's innocence, including FBI documents that had been available at the time of trial but were withheld from both the defense and prosecution," the lawyers for Aziz and Islam said in a statement Wednesday.
A spokesman said the FBI cooperated with the district attorney's review. The NYPD also said it cooperated fully with the Manhattan District Attorney’s office’s recent review of the investigation and prosecution.
This past February new questions were raised about the NYPD's handling of the investigation after a letter surfaced that had been written by a former New York City Police Department officer on his death bed.