New York City is seeking to settle lawsuits filed on behalf of two men who were exonerated last year for the 1965 murder of Malcolm X, agreeing to pay $26 million for the wrongful convictions.
New York City will pay $26 million in damages to settle a lawsuit over the wrongful convictions for the Malcolm X murder of two men who were exonerated late last year, The New York Times reported Sunday.
The two men, Muhammad A. Aziz and Khalil Islam, each spent more than 20 years in prison after their hasty arrests and a trial based on questionable evidence in one of the most notorious murders of the civil rights era.
His exonerations last November (Islam’s was posthumous) came as allegations of racism and discrimination in the criminal justice system again sparked national protests and political debate.
The newspaper indicates that the complaint was filed last July by representatives of the families of Muhammad A. Aziz and Khalil Islam, who spent two decades behind bars after a trial now considered unfair by the authorities.
The compensation will be divided between both parties, according to the lawyer for the two men, David Shanies, and a spokesman for the City Law Department, Nick Paolucci, who pointed out the importance of compensation for the erroneous sentences, annulled in 2021 after a research.
Aziz, 84, who has been haunted by the murder charge since he was paroled in 1985, was exonerated of the crime last December by a New York court that did the same posthumously with Islam, released in 1987. and passed away in 2009.
Aziz had claimed 40 million for the role played in his conviction by the New York police, who hid evidence that exonerated him and who, as the city itself has admitted, committed serious violations of the law that prevented a fair trial.
American civil rights leader Malcolm X was killed on February 21, 1965, when three men shot him as he was about to make a speech in an auditorium in Manhattan, New York.