The family of civil rights activist Malcolm X has sued the CIA, FBI, New York Police Department (NYPD), and other agencies over their alleged roles in his 1965 assassination.
The $100 million lawsuit, filed Friday in a New York City federal court, was announced by attorneys Ben Crump and Raymond Hamlin alongside the late activist’s relatives at a press conference.
Ilyasah Shabazz, one of X’s five living daughters, stood on stage while Crump announced the lawsuit against the “United States government, the FBI, the CIA, and the NYPD, who we believe all conspired to assassinate Malcolm X”:
“Over the last three years, every day, every week, every month, we have been unearthing new evidence… evidence of people never having spoken before about what they witnessed during those turbulent times in the 1960’s,” the lawyer said.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) was also named in the lawsuit, the Associated Press reported.
X, who was the most notable black nationalist of the Civil Rights Movement, was just 39 when he was fatally shot at a speaking engagement in New York City.
Though he was formerly a major figure in the black separatist group Nation of Islam, he faced backlash from them shortly before his death after denouncing the organizations’ “racist philosophy” after taking a trip to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
In 1966, Muhammad Abdul Aziz, Khalil Islam, and Mujahid Abdul Halim were convicted of X’s murder, which was believed to have been revenge from Nation of Islam members.
Halim admitted to shooting X, but Aziz and Islam were exonerated decades later in 2021 after prosecutors brought new evidence of “witness intimidation and suppression of exculpatory evidence,” NPR reported.
Then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. issued an apology for law enforcement’s “serious, unacceptable violations of law and the public trust.”
In their lawsuit against the law enforcement agencies, X’s family said prosecutors suppressed the government’s role in his murder.
The suit alleges there was a “corrupt” relationship between the government and “ruthless killers that went unchecked for many years and was actively concealed, condoned, protected, and facilitated by government agents.”
The lawsuit also alleges that the NYPD coordinated with federal law enforcement to arrest X’s personal security guards just before the shooting, and removed their own officers from the ballroom where he was holding his event.
It also alleges that federal law enforcement had undercover agents in the ballroom who did not protect X while he was being attacked.
X’s late wife, Betty Shabazz, “and their entire family have suffered the pain of the unknown” since the activist was killed, the suit added.
“They did not know who murdered Malcolm X, why he was murdered, the level of NYPD, FBI and CIA orchestration, the identity of the governmental agents who conspired to ensure his demise, or who fraudulently covered-up their role,” it states. “The damage caused to the Shabazz family is unimaginable, immense, and irreparable.”
None of the agencies have commented on the allegations made in the suit.
The family’s intention to sue the government was announced by Crump in February 2023, Breitbart News reported.