Two Black men, who were exonerated last year in the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, will be awarded a $36 million lawsuit settlement.
On Sunday, David Shanies, an attorney representing Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam, confirmed that the City of New York agreed on $26 million for the wrongful convictions, according to the Associated Press. The men will also receive an additional $10 million by the state of New York.
“Muhammad Aziz, Khalil Islam, and their families suffered because of these unjust convictions for more than 50 years,” Shanies said. “The City recognized the grave injustices done here, and I commend the sincerity and speed with which the Comptroller’s Office and the Corporation Counsel moved to resolve the lawsuits.”
Aziz, now 84, spent two decades behind bars after being convicted in March 1966 for the murder of the civil rights activist. He was 26 years old at the time, and left behind six young children.
He shared first-degree murder charges with his co-defendant, Khalil Islam, who died in 2009. The men were branded as X’s killers for more than half a century “despite the lack of physical evidence, conflicting statements from prosecution witnesses, and a third defendant who took the witness stand to confess to his role and to proclaim Aziz and Islam’s innocence,” BLACK ENTERPRISE
previously reported.Last year, the convictions were dismissed by a Manhattan judge citing “newly discovered evidence and the failure to disclose exculpatory evidence,” ABC News reported.
Following the decision, Aziz filed a lawsuit against New York City for $40 million.
“While I do not need this court, these prosecutors, or a piece of paper to tell me I am innocent, I am glad that my family, my friends, and the attorneys who have worked and supported me all these years are finally seeing the truth we have all known officially recognized,” Aziz said at the exoneration hearing, according to the Innocence Project.
“…I hope the same system that was responsible for this travesty of justice also take[s] responsibility for the immeasurable harm it caused me,” he added.