Muhammad Aziz, who was acquitted after serving 20 years in prison for the murder of Malcom X, one of the iconic figures of the civil rights movement in the US, filed a lawsuit for $40 million in damages.
Muhammad Aziz, who was exonerated after serving 20 years in prison for the murder of Muslim politician Malcom X, one of the leading figures in the struggle against racism in the US, has sued New York City for $40 million in damages.
According to BBC, the 84-year-old Aziz claimed in his lawsuit that the New York police had covered up evidence that would prove his innocence and asked for compensation from the municipality to which the police are affiliated.
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Aziz, a former Marine, was 26 years old and the father of six children when he was jailed in 1965. Malcom X was killed by three gunmen in 1965 in front of his family as he prepared to address a crowd in a New York ballroom.
Muhammad Aziz, Khalil Islam and Thomas Hogan, along with two others, were sentenced to life imprisonment in connection with the assassination. This was despite the lack of physical evidence, conflicting testimony from witnesses and Hogan’s confession that Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam had nothing to do with the assassination.
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Aziz was released on parole in 1985. Halil Islam was released in 1987 and Thomas Hogan in 2010. Halil Islam died in 2009.
After Netflix’s 2020 documentary “Who Killed Malcom X?”, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office apologized, stating that “newly discovered evidence” indicated that Aziz and Halil were innocent. Aziz and Halil’s convictions were overturned.
After Aziz was exonerated, he sued the state of New York last year. According to the New York Times, the case resulted in a five million dollar settlement.
Black rights activist Malcom X was murdered in 1965. Aziz and Khalil were members of the Nation of Islam, a political and religious organization that Malcom X had left in 1964 over differences of opinion. Malcom X was 39 years old when he was killed.
Malcom X’s daughters had requested a new investigation based on a letter written on his deathbed by a policeman on duty at the time of the assassination.
In this letter, the former police officer accused the FBI and the New York police of covering up some of the findings of the assassination.
