*Muhammad Abdul Aziz and Khalil Islam, who were wrongfully convicted in the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, but had their convictions overturned this past November, will be awarded $26 million due to a settlement with the city of New York.
Before being paroled, Aziz and Khalil Islam did 2 decades behind bars for the murder 55 years ago, a spokesperson for the New York City Law Department reiterated on Sunday, adding: “This settlement brings some measure of justice to individuals who spent decades in prison and bore the stigma of being falsely accused of murdering an iconic figure.”
Aziz, who was released in 1985, is now 84. Islam, who was freed two years later, died in 2009. He was 74.
“It’s tragic that he died never knowing that his name would be cleared,” an attorney for the two men told The New York Times. Their exonerations—and respective suits against the city, which were filed in July—came after a 22-month investigation in collaboration with the Innocence Project. “This case should have been overturned decades ago,” said Barry Scheck, the Innocence Project’s co-founder.
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