NEW YORK — A man and the family of his late co-defendant are set to receive $36 million from the state and city of New York for their wrongful convictions in the 1965 assassination of civil rights leader Malcolm X.
The two men, Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam, spent more than two decades each in prison, but their convictions were tossed in 2021 after a judge found “serious miscarriages of justice,” The New York Times reported, citing city and federal court records.
According to NBC News, 84-year-old Aziz and Islam, who died in 2009 at 74, were convicted alongside Mujahid Abdul Halim for the Feb. 21, 1965, assassination of the Black Muslims’ highest-profile spokesman as he began a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.
The attorney for Aziz and Islam said Sunday that the city agreed to settle for a total of $26 million to cover the claims of both plaintiffs and that the state agreed to $10 million. The settlement will be split evenly between Aziz, who was released from prison in 1985, and the estate of Islam, who was released in 1987 and died 22 years later, the network reported.
“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,” Nick Paolucci, a spokesman for the New York City Law Department, said in a prepared statement released Sunday.
According to the Times, the convictions were tossed after a 22-month investigation determined that prosecutors, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York Police Department had withheld key evidence that probably would have led to acquittals had it been presented to a jury.
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“Based on our review,” Paolucci continued, “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.’”