Malcolm X death: 55 years on, men wrongly convicted reach settlement with New York City, state

A man exonerated last year in the 1965 slaying of Black activist Malcolm X — as well as the estate of a second man cleared posthumously — reached a settlement totalling $36 million with New York City and state, their attorney said on Sunday.

Muhammad Aziz, 84, had sought $40 million after serving about two decades in prison, and more than 55 years after being wrongly blamed in the case that raised questions about racism in the criminal justice system. Aziz is married and has six children.

Khalil Islam, who died in 2009 (aged 74), also spent more than 20 years in prison and was exonerated in November 2021. His estate had also filed a $40 million suit.

The city has agreed to pay $26 million and the state will pay $10 million, attorney David Shanies told Reuters. The survivor and the man's estate will split the settlement.

"Muhammad Aziz, Khalil Islam, and their families deserve this for their suffering," Shanies said.

"They suffered a lifetime under the cloud of wrongly being accused of killing a civil rights leader."

Nick Paolucci, a spokesman for the New York City Law Department, told the New York Times on Sunday that "this settlement brings some measure of justice to individuals who spent decades in prison and bore the stigma of being falsely accused of murdering an iconic figure".

A representative for the state attorney general's office was not immediately available for comment.

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