WHO REALLY MURDERED MALCOLM X?
Three men have spent 86 years in jail for the 1965 killing of civil rights leader Malcolm X. Now, a crusading New York District Attorney could prove two of them innocent. The move follows an explosive TV series and long legal campaign. MIKE PARKER looks at a murder that shocked the world
THE MONTH before his assassination, America’s most controversial civil rights leader made a decision that stunned his armed bodyguards and ultimately sealed his fate. Malcolm X told his minders he no longer wanted them to frisk followers for weapons at weekly meetings of his group OAAU – the Organisation of Afroamerican Unity – at Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom.
It was an order that beggared belief, given that within weeks – on February 19, 1965 – he claimed in an interview that the rival Nation of Islam, of which he was once a prominent figure, was “actively trying to kill” him.
Few readers would have been surprised. Unlike the peaceful mass marches and non-violent protests led by Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X sparked fear of a race war by calling on supporters to achieve freedom, justice and equality “by any means necessary”.
FBI director J Edgar Hoover urged agents in New York to “do something” about the former thief who had served 10 years in jail, where he joined Nation of Islam.
After his release, he rose through the ranks to become the militant group’s spokesman but quit after falling out with another leader he accused of shaming their cause with a string of sexual affairs.
Malcolm X revealed during his February 19 interview that he and his family had received many death threats, but still refused to reverse his decision not to search attendees for weapons.
Two days later at the Audobon, he was about to speak when someone in the crowd yelled the N-word then: “Get your hand outta my pocket!” Then, all hell broke loose.
A man rushed forward with a sawn-off shotgun, blasting him in the chest as two other hitmen stormed the stage firing semiautomatic handguns.
The first gunman was shot in the leg by a bodyguard and pinned down as his two accomplices fled. Malcolm X was pronounced dead shortly after at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
An autopsy revealed 21 gunshot wounds to his chest, left shoulder, arms and legs, including 10 buckshot wounds from the initial shotgun blast. He was 39 and was eulogised at his February 27 Harlem funeral by Hollywood actor Ossie Davis as “our shining black prince... who didn’t hesitate to die because he loved us so.”
The gunman apprehended by the crowd – Nation of Islam member Talmadge Hayer – confessed to murder, was sentenced to life and freed on parole in 2010 after serving 44 years.
According to eyewitness statements, police arrested his alleged accomplices, two other Nation of Islam members, both members of a Harlem mosque that had branded Malcolm X a traitor.
Khalil Islam served 22 years of a life sentence before dying in jail in 2009, while Muhammad Abdul Aziz served 20 years before being released on parole. Both pleaded not guilty and Aziz protests his innocence to this day.
Now, more than 55 years after the murder, New York Assistant District Attorney Peter Casolaro will head a fresh investigation. His probe follows the Netflix documentary series Who Killed Malcolm X?, in which self-confessed assassin Hayer says Islam and Aziz were not fellow killers.
He sensationally names four alleged accomplices: Benjamin Thomas, Leon Davis, William X and a man by the name of Wilbur or Kinly, all from the Nation of Islam mosque in Newark, New Jersey. And he repeats what he says he told a court during Islam and Aziz’s trial: “They had nothing to do with it. I was there. I know what happened and I know the people who were there.”
AZIZ, now 81, who is also trying to help finally exonerate the late Islam, is being backed by the Innocence Project, a non-profit group of US civil rights attorneys. He said: “This wrongful conviction shaped lives other than mine. Everyone has been affected by this; a whole generation, children, grandchildren. This whole thing caused issues that have produced a fissure, a separation, a distance in my family.”
As well as there being no physical evidence,aziz even claims to have an alibi for the time of the assassination that authorities ignored. He says he was at home, resting after a serious leg injury – and his doctor was prepared to give evidence to that effect.
Police and FBI agents also botched their original investigation, according to Liz Mazucci, former chief researcher on the
Malcolm X Project, part of the Columbia University Centre for Contemporary Black History.
She says the crime scene itself was processed so quickly that a dance took place hours after the assassination. “It seemed convenient to pin the murder charges on Aziz and Islam, even though they didn’t quite fit the story given to police by eyewitness accounts and FBI informants,” she says.
Assistant District Attorney Casolaro will take charge of the new investigation following a meeting between his boss – New York DA Cyrus Vance Jr – and Innocence Project lawyers.
Casolaro famously led the inquiry into the notorious Central Park Five case that resulted in freedom for five teenagers who spent 15 years in jail for a rape they did not commit. In this case he will face claims from experts that authorities either colluded in or covered-up key elements of the case.
Civil rights historian David Garrow declares: “White prosecution authorities have never, across the entire chunk of time – decades of time – taken a serious interest in investigating, pursuing and solving Malcolm’s murder.”
Despite the racially sensitive nature of aspects of the case, however, documentary-maker Abdur-rahman Muhammad says there is no reason why those named by Hayer should not be brought to justice.
“It’s quite simple,” he said. “The killers are still out there.”