Down The Middle News: Malcolm X Doc Prompts ‘Reexamination’ Of Iconic Leader’s Assassination Investigation

Written by Vanessa Romo Feb. 11, 2020

In the course of the first couple of minutes of Who Killed Malcolm X? an assortment of individuals pose a lot of theories on the query.

The FBI was behind the notorious assassination of the controversial black Muslim chief and political activist.

The white energy construction in America conspired to gun him down.

It was an inside job carried out by his former brothers within the Nation of Islam.

New data revealed within the six-part documentary, which first aired on Fusion however has gotten a wider viewers on Netflix this month, raises so many questions on two of the three males who have been convicted of the 1965 homicide, that it has prompted the Manhattan district legal professional’s workplace to take one other take a look at the proof.

“District Lawyer [Cy] Vance has met with representatives from the Innocence Challenge and related counsel relating to this matter,” spokesman Danny Frost mentioned in an emailed assertion.

The Innocence Challenge is a nonprofit that works to exonerate the wrongly convicted. The group is working with civil rights legal professional David Shanies to reinvestigate the conviction of Muhammad Abdul Aziz, who on the time of Malcolm X’s loss of life was referred to as Norman 3X Butler.

The result of the district legal professional’s preliminary assessment “will inform the workplace relating to what additional investigative steps could also be undertaken,” Frost mentioned.

The documentary collection follows what’s turn into a lifelong ardour for historian Abdur-Rahman Muhammad as he makes an attempt to debunk the official account concerning the perpetrators of Malcolm X’s assassination.

“The primary time I noticed these bullet wounds, I assumed, ‘Why does not somebody wish to unravel this?’ So I began asking questions. … What’s the actual story?” Muhammad says within the first episode.

He combs by means of court docket paperwork, investigation data, decades-old newspaper tales and interviews with former members of the Nation of Islam. He asks unanswered questions relating to the New York Police Division’s absence on the day of the homicide on the Audubon Ballroom the place tons of of individuals had gathered to listen to the activist converse.

As he took the stage on Feb. 21, 1965, Malcolm X was blasted by a volley of bullets.

A yr later, three males — Thomas Hagan (who had additionally been referred to as Talmadge Hayer and Mujahid Abdul Halim), Khalil Islam (identified then as Thomas 15X Johnson ), and Aziz — have been convicted and sentenced to life in jail.

Whereas Hagan confessed to the homicide throughout the trial, he testified that neither Aziz nor Islam was concerned. However he declined to call the lads who had joined him within the assault.

In the meantime the opposite two males at all times maintained their innocence.

In 1978, Hayer gave the names of 4 males who he mentioned have been his accomplices. Nevertheless, his statements failed to influence officers to reopen the investigation of the homicide.

Hagan was launched in 2010 after spending greater than 40 years in jail.

Islam was launched in 1987 and died in 2009. Aziz, who was launched on parole in 1985, continues to be combating to clear his title.

“The day of the homicide, which was a Sunday morning, I used to be laying over the sofa with my [injured] foot up and I heard it over the radio,” Aziz remembers in Who Killed Malcolm X?

In response to the Innocence Challenge, “Along with a number of alibi witnesses, a physician who handled Aziz at Jacobi Hospital within the Bronx simply hours earlier than Malcolm’s homicide took the stand in Aziz’s protection.”

By a collection of Freedom of Data Act requests, civil rights lawyer William Kunstler obtained beforehand undisclosed FBI paperwork that supported Hagan’s account, the Innocence Challenge says.

“Given the historic significance of this case and the truth that our consumer is 81 years outdated, we’re particularly inspired that Mr. Vance has assigned two extremely revered prosecutors, Peter Casolaro and Charles King, to work on this re-investigation,” Barry Scheck, Innocence Challenge co-founder and particular counsel, mentioned in an announcement.

Casolaro led the reinvestigation of the rape case in opposition to the Central Park 5 in 2002.

“We stay up for working cooperatively with them to see that justice is completed,” Scheck added.