Malcolm X assassination may be reinvestigated by authorities

For decades after the assassination of Malcolm X, the confessed assassin maintained that the two other men convicted as his accomplices had nothing to do with the murder.

Historians have long believed that police and prosecutors botched the investigation. Conspiracy theories about police misconduct and hidden evidence have festered. And some critics believe most of the assassins who fired at the civil rights leader managed to get away, leading to the wrongful convictions of two members of the Nation of Islam.

But now, after a new Netflix documentary series extensively reviewed evidence in support of the two men’s innocence, the infamous assassination may be getting a second look.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in an email to the Washington Post on Sunday that it “will begin a preliminary review” of the case to decide whether it should be reinvestigated. The development was previously reported by the New York Times ahead of the Friday release of the Netflix documentary series, Who Killed Malcolm X?

Should the District Attorney’s Office reopen the case, the review may tackle elusive questions covering potential additional suspects or police mistakes in one of the most high-profile assassinations in American history. Spokesman Danny Frost said Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. made the decision to begin a review following a presentation several weeks ago by defense lawyers for Muhammad Abdul Aziz (previously known as Norman 3X Butler), one of the men convicted in Malcolm X’s assassination. The Innocence Project, which is handling the case along with attorney David B. Shanies, insists that 81-yearold Aziz spent 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was paroled in 1985.

The co-defendant who has also maintained his innocence, Khalil Islam (then Thomas 15X Johnson), died in 2009. The third defendant, confessed assassin Talmadge Hayer (aka Thomas Hagan and Mujahid Abdul Halim), maintained since his trial in 1966 that both Aziz and Islam are innocent.

“We are grateful that District Attorney Vance quickly agreed to conduct a review of the conviction of Muhammad Aziz,” Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, said in a Friday statement.

Who Killed Malcolm X? largely follows the work of historian and Washington tour guide Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, who spent years piecing together declassified FBI documents, interviewing former members of Nation of Islam mosques in New Jersey and New York City, and tracking down four other potential assassins named by Hayer but never formally investigated by authorities.

“I had read enough to believe the killers were still out there,” Muhammad said in the documentary. “I’ve never been afraid of the truth. I’ve always wanted to know, what is the real story? I mean, this is Malcolm X we’re talking about.”

In the year before his assassination, Malcolm X, 39, had split from the Nation of Islam and renounced its leader, Elijah Muhammad, as a “religious faker” pushing racist ideology. He started his own movement, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, and founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. The Nation of Islam saw him as a traitor. Louis Farrakhan, then rising in the ranks within the Nation of Islam, had written in the sect’s newspaper that he was “worthy of death.” And just a week before his assassination, Malcolm’s home had been firebombed.

On Feb. 21, 1965, multiple gunmen opened fire on Malcolm X as he gave a speech to an audience that included his wife and children, along with numerous police informants. Hayer was caught fleeing the scene with a clip matching a gun used in the shooting. As police pursued the other shooters, members of the Nation of Islam were the immediate suspects — but the documentary argues that police identified the wrong men from the wrong mosque.