US: Manhattan court acquits two men convicted of Malcolm X murder

Two African-Americans who spent decades in prison convicted of killing Malcolm X in 1965 have been acquitted by a Manhattan court today.

Supreme Court Justice Ellen Biben has ruled that the two men, Muhammad Aziz or Norman 3X Butler, 83, and Khalil Islam, or Thomas 15X Johnson, who died in 2009, are unjust.

Both were released on parole in the 1980s.

Describing their conviction as a “failure of justice”, Biben acquitted them of the charges at the request of New York Prosecutor Cyrus Vance and their lawyers.

Muhammad Aziz and two of Islam’s sons were present in court when the verdict was announced.

Cyrus Vance told the court that the new, acquittal evidence found during the authorities’ two-year investigation made it clear that Aziz and Islam had been unjustly convicted of the murder of Malcolm X, a Muslim preacher and African-American political rights activist.

The evidence also included documents that the investigators had withheld from both the defense and the prosecution. “I apologize for these serious, unacceptable violations of the law and the public’s trust,” the prosecutor said.

Those present burst into applause when Biben overturned the sentences, saying she regretted the court could not give back to Aziz and Islam the years they had lost.

SOURCE: AMPE

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Source From: Capital

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