The official record of one of the most important political assassinations in American history will be rewritten on Thursday afternoon when the Manhattan district attorney …
The official record of one of the most important political assassinations in American history will be rewritten on Thursday afternoon when the Manhattan district attorney steps into a courtroom and asks a state judge to vacate the convictions of two men found guilty in the killing of Malcolm X more than a half-century ago. A 22-month review jointly conducted by the district attorney’s office and lawyers for the two men, Muhammad A. Aziz and Khalil Islam, found what historians and scholars had long known: that the case against them was dubious from the start, based on conflicting witness testimony and no physical evidence. The Manhattan district attorney’s office, the New York Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation all withheld evidence pointing to different suspects that would have likely led to the men’s acquittal, the review found. Now,55 years after they were convicted, the verdicts are expected to be tossed out in a historic rectification of injustice. Mr. Aziz,83, will be in court and is expected to make a statement. He was released from prison in 1985. Mr. Islam was released in 1987 and died in 2009 at age 74.
