Two men exonerated over assassination of Malcolm X

New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance announced on Wednesday that his office was throwing out the convictions of two men who had been found guilty of the 1965 assassination of civil rights leader Malcolm X. 

Vance said that Muhammad A. Aziz and Khalil Islam had been the victims of a historic miscarriage of justice.

“These men did not get the justice that they deserved,” Vance said in an interview with The New York Times. “What we can do is acknowledge the error, the severity of the error.”

According to the Times, a 22-month investigation conducted jointly by the Manhattan district attorney’s office and lawyers for the two men found that prosecutors, the FBI and the New York Police Department withheld evidence that could have exonerated the two men.

On Thursday,  Manhattan judge Ellen Biben formally dismissed Aziz’ and Khalil’s convictions.

• #BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement

  ‘Necessary trouble’

  The image of civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis, who died on July 17, is projected onto the statue of Confederate Robert Lee in Richmond, Virginia. A champion of non-violent protest, he attended the 1963 March on Washington and played a key role in abolishing racial segregation. He famously declared: “Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

• #BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement

  ‘A voteless people is a hopeless people’

  Amelia Boynton Robinson was a civil rights pioneer who fought for voting rights for African Americans. She helped organize a 5-day civil rights march from the city of Selma to Montgomery in Alabama in March 1965. During the protest, Robinson and others were brutally beaten by state police. Images of what became known as Bloody Sunday went around the world.

• #BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement

  ‘The right man and the right place’

  Thurgood Marshall, pictured here in 1957, was the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court. Announcing his pick, US President Lyndon B. Johnson declared it was “the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place.” Marshall, who was born in the city of Baltimore, Maryland, successfully fought against the racial segregation of US schools and universities.

• #BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement

  ‘Tired of giving in’

  Rosa Parks made history, when on December 1, 1955, she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man. Her subsequent arrest sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, led by Martin Luther King. The 385 days of protest proved effective when on November 13, 1956, the Supreme Court upheld a ruling declaring segregated busses unconstitutional in Alabama and Montgomery.

• #BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement

  ‘I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land’

  Martin Luther King at Memphis’ Lorraine Motel, on the day of his killing on April 4, 1968. One day earlier, King famously said: “I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land.” Also pictured (to King’s left): Civil rights activist Hosea Williams and Baptist minister Jesse Jackson, to his right, Ralph Abernathy.

• #BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement

  Civil Rights Ambassador Young

  Andrew Jackson Young was in Memphis, Tennessee, on the day of Martin Luther King’s murder. The politician, civil rights leader, and clergyman had joined King in leading the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1967, President-elect Jimmy Carter nominated Young as the US ambassador to the United Nations. In 1981, he was elected mayor of Atlanta.

• #BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement

  ‘We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us’

  Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X (left), rejected Martin Luther King’s notion of non-violent protest. He was portrayed by actor Denzel Washington (right) in Spike Lee’s 1992 biopic “Malcolm X.” Once the African American leader of Nation of Islam, he later abandoned the organization, becoming one of its most fervent critics. He was assassinated on February 21, 1965.

• #BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement

  ‘My faith in the Constitution is whole’

  Barbara Jordan was the first woman and the first African American keynote speaker at a Democratic National Convention. In 1974, the attorney, legislator, and educator declared in the House of Representatives that “my faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total.”

• #BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement

  A jazz and civil rights icon

  Ella Fitzgerald, born in a New York suburb in 1917, was not only a jazz but also a civil rights icon. Fitzgerald, who won 13 Grammys and sold some 40 million records, always insisted musicians touring with her be treated equally, regardless of their skin color. She was the first African American woman to perform at Los Angeles’ Mocambo night club after actress Marilyn Monroe publicly backed her.

• #BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement

  Strong, black women

  Novelist Alice Walker became involved in the US civil rights movement in the 1960s. She was just 17 when she joined the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Walker’s novels feature strong, black women. And her work The Color Purple won a Pulitzer Prize in 1983.

• #BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement

  An outspoken activist

  Baptist minister Al Sharpton speaking at George Floyd’s funeral service. In 2004, Sharpton was a Democratic candidate for the presidential race. Two years later, in 2006, he led a protest march in honor of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old African American who had been shot dead by police. Al Sharpton is an outspoken and at times controversial activist.

• #BlackLivesMatter: Key figures in the US civil rights movement

  Kings of hope

  US President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama visited a Washington homeless shelter in January 2017, where they helped finish a mural of Martin Luther King. Obama was the first-ever African American to be elected president of the United States.

  Author: Astrid Prange

What happened to Malcolm X?

About a year before his death in February 1965, the civil rights leader publicly parted ways with the Nation of Islam after growing disillusioned with the group. In the months that followed, the organization ramped up threats against Malcolm X and weeks before his assassination, he expressed to several people that he was certain the Nation of Islam leadership wanted to kill him.

On February 21, he was preparing to give a speech when he was beset upon by a group of gunmen. They were identified by some witnesses as Aziz, Islam, and Mujahid Abdul Halim, despite Aziz and Islam providing alibis.

Halim admitted to the shooting, but insisted his co-accused were innocent. He would not give police the names of his true accomplices.

“This is a classic example of law enforcement engaging in confirmation bias,” said Gene Rossi, an attorney in Washington D.C. who previously worked for the US Justice Department. Rossi told DW that “they had three subjects: Mr. Halim, Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam, and they focused on them like a laser beam and they ignored another conspirator named William Bradley. So it was a comedy of errors that resulted from the lack of a culture to provide exculpatory evidence.”

Aziz, 83, was sentenced to life in prison in 1966 but was released in 1985. Also sentenced to life, Islam was released in 1987 and died in 2009. Both had consistently maintained their innocence in the slaying of the influential Black leader.

In a statement, Aziz said that “the events that brought us here 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.”

“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,” he added.

Despite the injustice, Rossi did not think police officials would face any consequences.

“I don’t think at this stage — it happened so many years ago — that anyone will be punished,” said Rossi. “However, there will be a strong learning lesson from this travesty of justice that two innocent men were sent away to prison for 20 years.”

es/aw (AP, Reuters)

Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/two-men-exonerated-over-assassination-of-malcolm-x/a-59852020?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf