Muhammad A. Aziz, who was exonerated last November in the 1965 assassination of civil rights leader Malcolm X, has sued New York City after the city admitted to wrongfully accusing him of being a murderer.
Muhammad Aziz, 84, is suing for $40 million in damages for his two decades in prison and more than 55 years of being wrongfully accused, saying it caused “immense and irreparable” harm to him and his family.
Aziz and the other man convicted in Malcolm X‘s murder, Khalil Islam, both maintained their innocence since the fatal shooting in 1965, 57 years ago.
The case was filed in the United States District Court on Thursday, setting up a lengthy legal battle for Aziz and his lawyers to win the lawsuit for the 84-year-old, who claims he was at home at the time of the assassination on Feb. 21, 1965.
Initially, the city comptroller and Aziz were negotiating a settlement, but the talks fell through, and Aziz and his attorneys are now suing the city.
According to David Shanies, a lawyer for Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam’s estate, the convictions were “the result of outrageous government misconduct and violations of their constitutional rights.” “These men and their families should not be delayed compensation for the gross injustices they suffered.”
According to the New York times, Mr. Aziz was a 26-year-old married father of six young children when he was convicted in 1966 of first-degree murder in the death of Malcolm X. The assassination took place when X was in the process of embarking on a new phase of his career after a bitter split from the Nation of Islam, a Black nationalist group.
Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam were convicted despite a lack of physical evidence, contradictory statements from prosecution witnesses, and a third defendant taking the witness stand to confess to his role and proclaim the innocence of the two other men.
Aziz’s lawyers accused the NYPD and the Manhattan district attorney’s office of restraining evidence that supported his innocence. They were also accused of using coercive tactics to persuade witnesses to give false testimony. According to the New York Times, the lawsuit names two dozen former New York police officers.
Khalil Islam, the other man wrongfully convicted of X’s murder, was posthumously exonerated after his death in 2009.
