Man exonerated of killing Malcolm X sues NYC for $40 million 

A man who was exonerated for wrongfully being convicted of killing the civil rights icon Malcolm X is suing the City of New York for $40 million. 

According to a lawsuit filed in a Brooklyn federal court on Thursday, Muhammad Aziz’s "wrongful conviction was the product of flagrant official misconduct, including, inter alia, by the NYPD and its intelligence unit, the Bureau of Special Services and Investigations."

Several city employees, including former NYPD detectives involved in the original investigation, are named as defendants. 

"Aziz spent 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit and more than 55 years living with the hardship and indignity attendant to being unjustly branded as a convicted murderer of one of the most important civil rights leaders in history," the lawsuit says.

Last November, two of the three men convicted for the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965 were exonerated. Aziz and Khalil Islam were both sentenced to life in prison, however, they have always maintained their innocence. The third man, Mujahid Adbul Halim, admitted to the killing but claimed that the other two were not involved. 

“The day of the murder, which was a Sunday morning, I was laying over the couch with my foot up and I heard it over the radio,” Aziz recalled in the Netflix documentary, “Who Killed Malcolm X?"

Aziz, now in his 80s, was released in 1985 after spending two decades in prison but continues to fight to clear his record. Islam died in 2009. 

“The events that brought us here should never have occurred; those events were and are the result of a process that was corrupt to its core — one that is all too familiar — even in 2021," Aziz said in a statement at the time. 

Aziz settled a separate lawsuit against New York State in April for $5 million, despite originally filing a claim for $20 million in damages. 

Islam’s family is also pursuing a similar litigation on his behalf against New York State and New York City.