Malcolm X’s family plans to file $100 million lawsuit against NYPD and other agencies

Family members of Malcolm X plan to file a lawsuit against the New York City Police Department and various other agencies, alleging they intentionally concealed evidence related to the murder after it happened.

Joined by civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump

Alongside their attorney Benjamin Crump, two of Malcolm X’s daughters, Qubilah Shabazz and Ilyasah Shabazz, announced a “formal notice” of the legal complaint to the city of New York, the state of New York, the NYPD, the district attorney’s office and various federal law enforcement agencies including the FBI and the CIA.

The lawsuit was announced at The Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center in New York’s Washington Heights neighborhood. The building which previously housed the Audubon Ballroom, where Malcolm X was fatally shot on Feb. 21, 1965, and now serves as a memorial site commemorating Malcolm X and Shabazz, his late wife.

Tuesday marked 58 years since his murder.

Family of Malcolm X intends to file a lawsuit

Crump said Malcolm X’s family intends to file a wrongful death lawsuit for $100 million, alleging that the entities named “had factual evidence and exculpatory evidence that they fraudulently concealed from the men who were wrongfully convicted for the assassination of Malcolm X.”

In 2021, a state Supreme Court judge officially exonerated two of the three men who had previously been convicted and incarcerated in connection to Malcolm X’s murder. A two-year investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office found Muhammad A. Aziz, then 83, and the late Khalil Islam were wrongfully convicted. A third man, Mujahid Abdul Halim, admitted to the fatal shooting but said neither Aziz nor Islam was involved.

“The connection between his death and federal and New York government agencies, including the NYPD, FBI and CIA has long been contested,” Crump said in a statement ahead of Tuesday’s news conference. “The governmental agencies had factual and exculpatory evidence that they fraudulently concealed from the family of Malcolm X and the men wrongly convicted of crimes surrounding the assassination of Malcolm X.”