Muhammad Aziz, 84, and Khalil Islam, who died in 2009, spent twenty -one years behind bars, before a court recognizes them innocent in 2021 and does not compensate them today.
Le Monde with AFP
Thirty-six million dollars each, this is the sum that the two African-Americans innoceted in 2021 will touch after more than twenty years in prison each, for the assassination in 1965 of Malcolm X, said on Sunday 30 October their lawyer, confirming information from the New York Times .
“The tragedy of the murder of Malcolm X was felt around the world and aggravated by the fact that it led to the conviction and imprisonment of two young innocent black men in America,” replied in a Email at the France-Presse agency (AFP) their lawyer David Shanies. “This injustice is now recognized and a modest step has been taken to correct it,” added the representative of Muhammad Aziz, 84, and the family of Khalil Islam, died in 2009.
The lawyer confirmed that the city of New York was going to pay $ 26 million to each of the two men and their families. The New York State will also pay them five million dollars each, or $ 36 million in total compensation, according to figures revealed by the New York Times.
42 years in prison for two
Last November, the Supreme Court of New York State had legally innocent MM. Aziz and Islam, describing their condemnation as a “failure of justice” more than half a century for the assassination on February 21, 1965 to Harlem of the cause of civil rights, Malcolm X.
Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam, who have done 42 years in prison in their own, have always proclaimed their innocence.
The third condemned Mujahid Abdul Halim – released in 2010 – had recognized at the time having shot Malcolm X and had put his two co -accused out of the case, but in vain until 2020 and the reopening of the file by justice from New York.