Judge tosses convictions of two in Malcolm X assassination

NEW YORK — More than half a century after the assassination of Malcolm X, two of his convicted killers were exonerated Thursday after decades of doubt about who was responsible for the civil rights icon’s death.

Manhattan judge Ellen Biben dismissed the convictions of Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam after prosecutors and the men’s lawyers said a renewed investigation found new evidence that undermined the case against the men and determined that authorities withheld some of what they knew.

“The event that has brought us to court today should never have occurred,” Aziz told the court. “I am an 83-year-old man who was victimized by the criminal justice system.”

He and Islam, who maintained their innocence from the start in the 1965 killing at Upper Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom, were paroled in the 1980s. Islam died in 2009.

Malcolm X gained national prominence as the voice of the Nation of Islam, exhorting Black people to claim their civil rights “by any means necessary.”

Near the end of Malcolm X’s life, he split with the Black Muslim organization and, after a trip to Mecca, started speaking about the potential for racial unity. It earned him the ire of some in the Nation of Islam, who saw him as a traitor.

He was shot to death while starting a speech Feb. 21, 1965. He was 39.

Aziz and Islam, then known as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas

15X Johnson, and a third man were convicted of murder in March 1966. They were sentenced to life in prison.

The third man, Mujahid Abdul Halim — also known as Talmadge Hayer and Thomas Hagan — admitted to shooting Malcolm X but said neither Aziz nor Islam was involved. The two offered alibis, and no physical evidence linked them to the crime.