Manhattan DA, Lawyers For Men Convicted In Malcolm X Assassination Expected To Speak This Afternoon

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — The Manhattan District Attorney on Thursday is asking a court to vacate the convictions of two of the three men convicted of murdering civil rights activist Malcolm X in 1965.

Both men served more than two decades in prison for a crime they did not commit. After a 22-month investigation, they’ll be exonerated, CBS2’s Alice Gainer reported.

It was February 21, 1965. Malcolm X, 39, was killed in a hail of bullets at the Audubon Ballroom. Talmadge Hayer was arrested at the scene. Days later, Muhammad Aziz was arrested, followed by Kahlil Islam. Both insisted they were innocent and offered alibis.

At trial, Hayer admitted he took part, but said the other two men did not. All three were convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison in 1966.

Aziz, after serving 20 years, was released in 1985. Islam was released in 1987 and professed his innocence before he died in 2009.

“I’m a righteous, innocent individual, a real human being,” Islam said at the time.

Hayer was paroled in 2010.

“If I wanted to do it, I couldn’t have done it, so that means they knew what they were doing when they put me in jail,” Aziz, now 83, said.

So why are they finally being exonerated now? The Manhattan DA’s office started a preliminary review on the heels of the 2020 Netflix documentary “Who Killed Malcolm X?”

“You can see very clearly that there was no real desire to solve this murder… Even the rostrum with the bullet holes in it was just flung into the basement, where it remained for another 20 years or so,” said historian Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, whose years-long investigation of the murder was the center of the documentary.

Producer and director Phil Bertelsen said the FBI had plenty of eyes and ears in the ballroom during the shooting, but the testimony was never heard. Lawyers for the men said the nearly two-year investigation found authorities withheld evidence favorable to the defense during the trial.

State Sen. James Sanders said the full story still has not been told.

“Who sent them? Not just the idiots pulling the trigger, but who were the main conspirators? Who are the ones who sat and organized all of these things?” Sanders said.

A press conference is scheduled for 2 p.m. after court Thursday. The Manhattan DA, Innocence Project and lawyers for both men are expected to be there. The press conference will be streamed live on CBSN New York.

from CBS New York https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2021/11/18/malcolm-x-assassination-convictions-exonerated-talmadge-hayer-kahlil-islam/
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