Malcolm X Murder: 59 years after the assassination of civil rights activist Malcolm X, his daughters have moved to a US court filing a USD 100 million lawsuit against the FBI, CIA, and New York Police Department (NYPD) for their alleged role in his murder in 1965. The lawsuit, filed at Federal Manhattan court, claimed that these agencies were aware of the attempts on his life yet they failed to intervene and stop it, Fox News reported.
Malcolm Little, better known as Malcolm X, was shot dead on February 21, 1965, while addressing a crowd at Audubon Ballroom in Upper Manhattan.
Malcolm, a crusader for civil rights for blacks and other marginal communities in the US was a vocal advocate of the promotion of Islam within the African American community.
Malcolm was shot 21 times in front of his wife Batty Shabazz by three men as he was starting to speak at the event. During the assassination of X, his two daughters were also present at the site.
Three men, one being a member of the Nation Of Islam, Talmadge Hayer, were initially convicted of the crime and a trial ensued. In March 1966, Hayer along with Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson were sent to life in prison for homicide.
While all three were initially convicted, two - 3X and 15X - were acquitted in 2021 amid the emergence of new evidence which suggested ignorance on the part of security agencies.
Later, a testimony by one of the security officers with Malcolm X at that time complicated the case. Mustafa Hassan claimed that when he tried stopping one of the shooters from fleeing the scene, he was interrupted by a police unit present at the scene.
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Hassan claimed that some officers were asking, "Is he with us?"
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Ben Crump, the civil rights lawyer representing Malcolm X's daughters and his estate, stated that the lawsuit aims to reveal the "corrupt, unlawful, and unconstitutional" actions by law enforcement and other government entities before Malcolm X's assassination. The suit alleges that the government allowed a network of "ruthless killers" to act without consequence, covering up their actions for decades.