Three of Malcolm X’s daughters have filed a lawsuit against the CIA, FBI, and New York Police Department, accusing the agencies of complicity in the assassination of the militant black activist.
Filed in a Manhattan court on Friday, the suit alleges that the CIA, FBI, and NYPD were aware of a plot to kill Malcolm X, but did not act to stop it. It claims that the NYPD arrested his security detail days before the assassination, while the CIA and FBI’s undercover agents – who were present on the night of the fatal shooting – stood by while the militant leader was gunned down.
The lawsuit alleges that there was a “corrupt, unlawful, and unconstitutional” relationship between the agencies and “ruthless killers that went unchecked for many years and was actively concealed, condoned, protected, and facilitated by government agents.”
“We believe that they all conspired to assassinate Malcolm X, one of the greatest thought leaders of the 20th century,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, said at a press conference on Friday.
The agencies covered up their involvement in the killing for decades, “blocking the Shabazz family’s access to the truth and their right to pursue justice,” Crump claimed.
Malcolm X rose to prominence as the national spokesman of the Nation of Islam (NOI), a black Muslim sect that considers white people “devils” and advocates racial segregation. He adopted the name el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz during his time with the NOI, although he broke ties with the group in the early 1960s.
Malcolm X was shot dead as he prepared to deliver a speech in a New York ballroom in 1965. His murder was initially pinned on three members of the NOI – Muhammad Abdul Aziz, Khalil Islam, and Thomas Hagan – who were all charged, tried, and convicted for the killing.
After spending over 20 years in prison, in November 2021, Aziz and Islam were exonerated and awarded $36 million for wrongful convictions. That was after the Manhattan district attorney’s offices discovered that prosecutors and the FBI had withheld key evidence that would have acquitted the two men.
Unlike Martin Luther King, who campaigned for racial integration in the US, Malcolm X advocated for the complete separation of whites and blacks. He argued that black Americans deserved reparations and their own independent state in the southern US, and called on his followers to use violence to achieve this goal if necessary, although he later toned down his rhetoric and cooperated with other civil rights organizations.
His segregationist beliefs brought him into a loose alliance with the Ku Klux Klan, which called for segregation from the other side of the US’ racial divide. Malcolm X also famously met with American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell, who said that he was “fully in concert with [the NOI’s] program” of racial separation.
BBC version: Malcolm X’s family sues FBI, CIA and NYPD over his murder
George Wright BBC News 16 November 2024, 12:20 GMT Updated 8 hours ago
The family of murdered black civil rights activist Malcolm X is suing the FBI, the CIA and the New York police department (NYPD) for $100m (£79m), accusing them of a having role in his death.
The lawsuit says the agencies were involved in the plot and failed to stop the killing.
“We believe that they all conspired to assassinate Malcolm X, one of the greatest thought leaders of the 20th Century,” Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney who is representing the family, said at a news conference.
Malcolm X was killed in 1965 when three armed men shot him 21 times as he was preparing to speak in New York.
The lawsuit alleges that a “corrupt, unlawful and unconstitutional” relationship between law enforcement and the “ruthless killers” allowed for the murder.
A link between the agencies and the killers “went unchecked for many years and was actively concealed, condoned, protected and facilitated by government agents”, the lawsuit says.
It says the NYPD, coordinating with the agencies, also detained members of Malcolm X's security team days before the shooting and intentionally removed their officers from inside the ballroom where he was shot.
Federal agents, including undercover operatives, were in the ballroom during the assassination and took no steps to intervene, the lawsuit alleges.
The family announced their intention to sue last year.
The NYPD said it "will decline comment on pending litigation" and the CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI told the Associated Press that it was its “standard practice” not to comment on litigation.
Malcolm X was a lead spokesman for the Nation of Islam - which advocated separatism for black Americans - before his acrimonious split from the organisation. He was 39 when he was killed.
One man, a Nation of Islam member, confessed to killing him.
In 2021, two other men convicted of killing him had their convictions thrown out after a New York state judge declared there had been a miscarriage of justice.
The two men were later fully exonerated after New York's attorney general found prosecutors had withheld evidence that would have probably cleared them of the murder.
Family of the wrongly convicted men sued and won $26m from New York City and $10m from New York state.
on November 16, 2024, 8:02 pm