Last week, the US Public Prosecution announced the acquittal of two people previously convicted of killing the famous American fighter Malcolm X in 1965, meaning about 55 years ago.
It is expected that the convictions of the two men “Muhammad Aziz” and “Khalil Islam” issued in 1966 will be overturned after a lengthy investigation, which means rewriting the official history of one of the most famous murders in the era of civil rights in America.
– The acquittal of the two men will also be an admission of the grave mistakes committed in the case of Z-D mission, related to the killing of one of the most influential black leaders in America in 1965, in the era of the fight against racism, according to the words of the American newspaper “New York Times”.
What are the details of this story? How can an acquittal be obtained in a case that has been settled for more than 50 years? What can we see from this story? This is what we will talk about in this post.
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What are the details of the story?
Last Monday, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. announced the dropping of convictions against two Muslim men who were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1966, and later released in 2009 on parole.
The Public Prosecutor confirmed, in statements to the New York Times, that the FBI and the New York Police hid a set of evidence that would have resulted in the acquittal of (Mohammed Aziz and Khalil Islam), whom the Public Prosecutor described as “did not get the justice they deserve.”
Attorney General Vance apologized on behalf of the US law enforcement agencies, and said, “They have failed the Aziz and Islam families, and this points to the fact that law enforcement throughout history has often failed to fulfill its responsibilities.”
– Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam were convicted, along with a third person, Thomas Hagan, of first-degree murder. This last person had admitted that he had actually shot Malcolm X in 1965, and he was arrested at the time because the crowds rushed on him and beat him after seeing him He is shooting, and the police rescued him from the hands of the people and arrested him.
The strange thing is that Hagan, who was convicted of murder – who I know as Mujahid Abdel Halim – confirmed the innocence of Muhammad Aziz, who is currently 81 years old, and Khalil Islam, who died in 2009, and said in his testimony at the time of the trial, “I was there and I know what happened and I know who were there “.
Malcolm X was murdered on February 21, 1965, when he was shot by three gunmen as he prepared to give a speech at the Audubon Auditorium in Manhattan.
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Who is Malcolm X?
Malcolm X, whose real name is Malcolm Little, is one of the most prominent human rights activists to defend the people of dark skin. He is also an Islamic preacher. He is known for his brave defense of the rights of blacks and Muslims, and his great eloquence in rhetoric.
He was born in 1925 to the father of a monk named Earl Little, and his father, who was desperate for blacks to get their freedom in America at the time when Malcolm was only 5 years old, was killed in a crime whose perpetrator is not officially known, but mostly it is a racist crime, and his mother was placed in A mental hospital after severe depression due to her dismissal from her work as a maid and the refusal of many institutions to provide social benefits for her due to the color of her skin.
Malcolm lived in many difficulties due to poverty and racism that prompted him to abandon the dream of a lawyer. He worked as a shoe shiner, worked as a railway worker, and got involved in closed ghettos for blacks engaging in criminal activities such as theft and drug trafficking, and he was imprisoned in 1946 for theft, which by the way was his Two partners left in half the term because they are white.
During the prison period, Malcolm converted to Islam after continuous advice from one of his colleagues in prison, and after what his sisters wrote to him and told him that they had converted to Islam and the reason is a person named “Elijah Muhammad”, and he turned from a rioter and engages in criminal activities, to a person of good morals and participates in debates and sermons, and invites to Islam .
Malcolm joined the “Nation of Islam” movement, whose leader was Elijah Muhammad, as soon as he was released from prison in 1952, and his leadership personality and distinctive oratorical abilities contributed to being one of the prominent figures in the movement, but he later separated from it, but because of his activity he contributed to increasing the members of the organization from 500 One person for 300,000 people, including the famous boxer Muhammad Ali.
Because of his great fame as a result of speeches, articles and television appearances, and this was complementary to the activity of the other fighter for black rights, Martin Luther King, and so the FBI began to follow up his activity and planted some spies within the movement to follow everything.
– After disputes between Malcolm and Elijah, who was claiming prophethood and was portraying Islam as a religion of blacks and that whites are just demons, Malcolm decided to establish a new movement, and traveled for the pilgrimage to Mecca and discovered true Islam far from Elijah’s myths and its racist doctrine.
– This is what he left in the last period of his life. He changed his speech and remained focused on the necessity of understanding Islam to solve racial problems in American society, and on defending human rights on the basis of the brotherhood of all races, and he changed his name at the time to “Malik Al Shabazz.”
He founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity after a number of tours in Africa, and another Arab tour in which he met King “Faisal”, Algerian President “Ahmed Ben Bella” and a number of heads and leaders of Arab countries. but correctly.
Because of his call to Islam correctly and his attraction of a large number of black members of the “Nation of Islam” movement and their joining the movement of Malcolm X or “Malik al-Shabazz”, the differences between him and Elijah and his supporters increased, who began to attack him and threaten him with death due to the collapse of the Elijah movement.
A week before the assassination of Malcolm, his home in Queens was bombed while he, his wife and four daughters slept, until the assassination was actually carried out before he delivered a speech in Manhattan.
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How was the conviction lifted after all these years?
In 2020, the Manhattan District Attorney requested a review of the Malcolm X case file after he interviewed a civil society rights group called the Innocence Project, which is working to restore respect to the wrongly convicted.
– The Innocence Project, they presented several evidence confirming the wrongful conviction of 2 of the accused in the murder of Malcolm, and at the same time, Malcolm’s family requested that the investigation be reopened, after they received a message from a former policeman who was present in the year of the murder, in which he said that he was the New York Police and the FBI. They conspired to murder, and he cleverly police chiefs and implicated 3 of Malcolm X’s security team in committing crimes that led to their arrest days before Malcolm’s assassination, and thus they were removed from his guard.
Last February, a six-part documentary series for Netflix came out entitled “Who Killed Malcolm X?” The series confirms that the two people convicted of Malcolm’s murder are not present in the hall where the assassination took place.
– The series accuses four members of the Nation of Islam mosque in the US state of New Jersey, and the irony is that many residents of their city were aware of their involvement in the crime, and Rachel Dritzen, the co-director of the documentary series, said that what shocked them was the idea that the killer was living in plain sight and was a lot of People are aware of his involvement, and he has not been investigated, questioned, or prosecuted.”
– Abdul Rahman Muhammad, the tour guide and the main character in the new documentary series, followed testimonies received in the late seventies of the last century about four members of a mosque in Newark, New Jersey, most likely accomplices in the crime, and revealed the identity of one of them, who is likely to have fired the bullet that killed him. Malcom.
Before that, there were many writings referring to the process of concealing documents in the investigations into the Malcolm X murder case, but the series that Netflix made moved the topic completely after it reached many details that were hidden. And that is why we can say that this series resulted in the acquittal of 2 who were convicted of 50 years ago, of whom, unfortunately, one died, and the other is still alive.
After the end of the prosecution’s investigations that lasted for more than a year, a hearing was held in the Supreme Court of the District of New York last Thursday, in which “Mohamed Aziz” – the second defendant – told the court: “The events that brought us to court today should never have been, those The events were and are the result of an intrinsically corrupt process, very familiar to blacks in 2021.” “I hope that the same system that was responsible for this perversion of justice will bear the responsibility for the immeasurable harm that has been done to me over the past 55 or 56 years.”
During the same hearing, the Administrative Judge of the Supreme Court of the New York District, Elaine Pepin, agreed to a request to overturn the convictions of both Muhammad Abdulaziz and the late Khalil Islam. In her ruling, Pepin said: “I regret that this court cannot fully retract the serious judicial errors in this case, and return to you the many years that were lost.” The audience exploded in applause after the judge’s words ended.
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What do we gain from this whole story?
The first thing is that there is a possibility that there will be a defect in the justice and law system in any country in the world, including the advanced democratic countries, but the advanced democratic countries are supposed to have many mechanisms that can restore the right to its owners, even after decades.
– This case has a civil society human rights organization, whose job it is to discover the innocence of people convicted by the American judiciary, and this does not allow anyone to say that you insult the American judiciary and question its integrity or, for example, that they are against the state, and no one imprisoned them on charges of spreading rumors and false news, no, it is normal that they work as long as they adhere to the law and the state will respond to you.
– We see here journalists, researchers and directors of films and documentaries who write and work freely in the thorny murder case of a leader and human rights activist who died 50 years ago, without anyone bothering them or harming them under any pretext, because it is in freedom of the press, freedom of research and freedom of creativity.
– No, and also, we see in America that it is the series and the investigation that you are doing. You do not want to deal with it with disregard, because in a district he was listening, and he would repeat the investigation and return the right to its owners, and apologize for the defect in the justice system that resulted in this injustice against innocent and honorable people, without any shame He was angry and did not feel ashamed or offended by correcting a mistake after so many years had passed.
– It is true that the two people who personally benefited from declaring their innocence repudiated because they actually spent many years in prison unjustly, and one of them died unfortunately, but their children and grandchildren benefit by removing their name from the list of convictions, and emphasizing that they are not criminals, and that is the least thing.
We must know from this story that civil society, a free press, and an independent judiciary that corrects its mistakes are important pillars in any society. They preserve people’s rights, give them voice and oversight, prevent people from being unjust, or redress the harm of those who have been wronged, and always leave a state of balance in society.
Unfortunately, we see in front of him here in Egypt judicial rulings of imprisonment and imprisonment without any right against opponents simply because of a security desire to imprison them, and without hearing the pleadings of lawyers who confirm the innocence of the detainees and the lies of the investigations without any response, and we see the absence of justice and law to the extent that a lawyer is investigated on charges Insulting the prosecution and justice, because he said in his pleading that there are shortcomings in the prosecution’s investigations.
Unfortunately, in Egypt, the press is still handcuffed in front of anything that happens, although we have a long history of journalism and very distinguished journalists, but they are prohibited in one way or another from interacting with the issues of their society by research and investigation, and it narrows them down and shuts them down for their work.
We hope to see in our country very soon a judicial system that corrects its mistakes, civil society organizations doing their part, and a free press that will be the voice of the people.