Man wrongly convicted of killing Malcolm X kept solitary confinement

Man wrongly convicted of killing Malcolm X tells how he was kept in solitary confinement for 19 months straight even though ‘no one thought he did it’

• Muhammad Abdul Aziz, 83, was kept in solitary confinement for the first 19 months of his incarceration 
• He told Nightline’s Byron Pitts, 61, that he never faced ‘threats’ while in prison because ‘nobody ever thought I did it’  
• Aziz was convicted for the 1965 murder of Civil Rights Activist Malcolm X  and spent 20 years in prison 
• He and two men were convicted in March 1966 and Aziz was released in 1985
• Mujahid Abdul Halim – who shot Malcolm – admitting Aziz and Khalil Islam had nothing to do with it
• X / o n e r a t e d – The Murder of Malcolm X and 55 Years to Justice will air on ABC News’ Soul of the Nation on February 3 at 9pm

An innocent man who spent 20 years in prison for the 1965 murder of Malcolm X will reveal in his first interview since being exonerated that he was kept in solitary confinement for the first 19 months of his incarceration despite never being threatened in jail because ‘nobody ever thought I did it’.

Muhammad Abdul Aziz, 83, was paroled in the 1980s but had his conviction hanging over his head until November when he was finally exonerated for the murder of the Civil Rights activist – 55 years after being jailed. 

In an exclusive interview airing on Thursday on ABC News’s Soul of the Nation, Aziz tells Nightline co-anchor Byron Pitts, 61, about his exoneration and his time spent in solitary confinement.  

‘[For the first 19 months, I spent] in what you can call solitary – or what they call “in a box,'” he told Pitts. 

Three men were convicted of the murder of Malcolm X. Aziz and Khalil Islam – who was posthumously exonerated in November – and Mujahid Abdul Halim, who confessed to the assassination. Halim admitted the other two men were not involved and were innocent, yet they remained in prison for two decades. 

Azis and Islam were both lieutenants in the Nation of Islam’s militia and worked at the Harlem mosque where Malcolm X was a minister before leaving after having a disagreement with the leader. 

Islam died in 2009.

Muhammad Abdul Aziz, 83, who was convicted for the murder of Civil Rights Activist Malcolm X, said he was in solitary confinement for the first 19 months of his incarceration 

He discussed his story of being wrongfully convicted on ABC News’ Soul of the Nation, airing Thursday at 9pm 

Malcolm X (pictured) died in 1965 and Aziz and two other men were convicted in March 1966 

Regardless of the murder conviction for one of the biggest Civil Rights activists, Aziz said never felt ‘threatened’ in prison, despite his fellow inmates knowing that why he was behind bars.  

‘To me? No. No. The people know I didn’t do. Nobody ever thought I did it.’ 

In the clip, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, Aziz’s son Craig Butler detailed how hard it was for his father to go to prison.  

‘I used to cry for my father,’ Butler told Pitts. ‘I missed my dad. I remember that, you know. I was just crying for my dad because he wasn’t there and asking my mom: “Where is dad?”

‘It was very painful for me. When they took him, it changed every way the family does things, he was our provider, for one.’ 

Aziz, who was 26 years old at the time of the crime (left), was exonerated in November (right). He was released from prison on parole in the 80s 

He celebrated his exoneration with family and is now suing the state for the ‘serious miscarriages of justice’ that led to his conviction 

Aziz conviction was vacated in November after a review by the Manhattan district attorney found that they didn’t get a fair trial because authorities withheld key evidence from the defense and prosecution.

Aziz is now suing the state for the ‘serious miscarriages of justice’ that led to his conviction. He was 26 years old when he was arrested in 1965 and 46 when he was released in 1985.

‘The more than 20 years that I spent in prison were stolen from me and my family, and while the official record now recognizes the truth that has been known for decades, nothing can undo the damage that my wrongful conviction caused to all of us,’ Aziz said in a statement provided by his lawyers in December.  

Aziz’s lawyer told New York City that he intends to file a $40million civil rights lawsuit against the city in 90 days if a deal with the state isn’t struck, according to The New York Times.

Aziz and Khalil Islam, who was released in 1987 and died in 2009, were both exonerated in November.

Aziz’s son Craig Butler said it was ‘very painful’ for him when his father went to prison 

Butler (middle) said he would often ask his mother where his father was and used to ‘cry for my father’ 

Manhattan Judge Ellen Biben dismissed their convictions after prosecutors and the men’s lawyers found new evidence that Aziz and Islam were not involved with the killing and that the FBI and the New York Police Department withheld some of what they knew.

Moreover, Mujahid Halim, who was also convicted in Malcolm X’s murder but sentenced to life in prison, testified at a trial that ‘neither of them had any involvement with the murder of Malcolm X,’ according to Aziz’s lawsuit.

The investigation into the convictions was launched by Cy Vance, Manhattan’s former district attorney, following the broadcast of a six-part Netflix documentary last year that sparked renewed focus on the case.

Vance, 66, apologized to Aziz in court in November. 

Muhammad Aziz’s Full Statement to Court: 

‘The events that led to my exoneration should never have occurred. 

‘Those events were and are the result of a process that was corrupt to its core – one that is all too familiar – even in 2021. 

‘While I do not need a court, prosecutors, or a piece of paper to tell me I am innocent, I am glad that my family, my friends, and the attorneys who have worked and supported me all these years are finally seeing the truth we have all known, officially recognized. 

‘I am an 83-year-old man who was victimized by the criminal justice system, and I do not know how many more years I have to be creative. 

‘However, I hope the same system that was responsible for this travesty of justice also take responsibility for the immeasurable harm it caused me.’

FBI files showed that the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover ordered agents to tell witnesses not to reveal that they were informants when talking with police and prosecutors. 

‘Many of those documents were exculpatory. None of them were disclosed to the defense,’ Vance told the court on Thursday.

‘Without these files, it is clear these men did not receive a fair trial, and their convictions must be vacated.’

In the lawsuit against the state, Aziz’s lawyers detailed the physical, emotional and mental distress and other damages he faced during his 20-year stay in maximum-security prisons throughout New York.

‘As a result of his wrongful conviction and imprisonment, Mr. Aziz spent 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit and more than 55 years living with the hardship and indignity attendant to being unjustly branded as a convicted murderer of one of the most important civil rights leaders in history,’ the lawsuit states, according to CNN.

Aziz was the father to six young children at the time he was arrested, and his wife left him while he was in prison.

While incarcerated, he became an imam and impressed guards with his leadership abilities, once mediating a strike by detainees at Attica in the late 1970s and making sure that ‘the demonstration was brought to a peaceful conclusion without violence,’ according to a 1981 letter sent by a former commissioner of correctional services, Benjamin Ward, to New York Gov. Hugh L. Carey.

In November, Aziz told the court: ‘The events that led to my exoneration should never have occurred.

‘I am an 83-year-old man who was victimized by the criminal justice system.’

The three men accused of murdering Malcolm X – one who admitted to the crime served 45 years of a life prison sentence while the other two had their convictions thrown out in November 

Three Nation of Islam followers were convicted of murdering civil rights leader Malcom X in 1965 and nearly five decades later one man who admitted to the crime is free from prison after serving 45 years of his life sentence while the other two, who have maintained their innocence, are set to have their convictions thrown in November 2021.

Mujahid Abdul Halim, admitted to the assassination 

Mujahid Abdul Halim, 80, was the only man to confess to shooting dead Malcolm X inside Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965 as he began a speech 

Mujahid Abdul Halim, 80, also known as Thomas Hagan, was the only man to confess to shooting Malcolm X dead inside Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965 as he began a speech.

He was caught – and rescued – by police after bystanders in the ballroom captured Halim, beat him and shot him in the leg following his fatal gunshots. 

Halim and four other assassins, who were never convicted, planned to gun down Malcom X, according to a 2008 affidavit. One man pickpocketed attendees as a distraction while another shot Malcolm X in the chest.

Halim, who then went by the name Talmadge X Hayer, then fired several shots into the infamous leader’s dying body after he collapsed on the stage.  

The court filing explained that Halim ‘acted out of rage’ over Malcolm X’s split from the Nation of Islam, a black nationalist, religious and political organization founded in the US in 1930. 

Halim claimed he was young and acted impulsively due to his loyalties to Nation of Islam’s leader Elijah Muhammad, who thought Malcolm X was a ‘hypocrite’ for splitting from the cult-like group despite being the organization’s chief spokesman.

Malcolm X had reportedly broke from the Nation of Islam after accusing Muhammad of adultery and not doing enough for civil rights. 

He told The New York Post that in 2008 he lived in Manhattan’s Sunset Park, worked at a fast-food restaurant and spent his free time with his wife and kids and told the news site that although he still practiced his faith, he left the Nation of Islam. 

He was 39 years old when he was condemned to life in prison on charges for second-degree murder. However, he only served 23 years behind bars and the following 22 in a work-release program.

While in prison he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degree and his work-related program gave him jobs at the Crown Heights Youth Collective as as a counselor at a homeless shelter on Ward’s Island, according to The Post. 

The first year into his work-related program Halim also fathered a child. 

Throughout Halim’s time in prison – and into his life as a free man – he has consistently denied that the other two men arrested for the crime were guilty. 

Muhammad A Aziz, on parole since the 80s

Muhammad A Aziz, 26 at the time of the crime and now 83

Muhammad A Aziz, 83, was exonerated for assassinating Malcolm X in November 2021. 

Then a 26-year-old known as Norman Butler, Aziz was a lieutenant in the Nation of Islam’s military and worked at the Harlem mosque Malcolm X headed before parting ways from the sect’s leader.

The now-elderly Aziz had maintained his innocence. On February 21, 1965 he was a Navy veteran and former convict out on parole after beating and shooting Benjamin Brown, who set up a mosque in the Bronx. 

While behind bars Aziz graduated with his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in religious studies and went on to work as the chief of security for a Harlem mosque while out on parole. 

Khalil Islam, died in 2009 while on parole 

Khalil Islam – then Thomas Johnson – died in 2009 at the age of 74.

Islam attested that he had no role in the assassination at Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights on February 21, 1965, until his dying day, and a now elderly Aziz still standing by that same sentiment.  

Khalil Islam, 26 at the time of the crime and died in 2009 aged 74

Islam was also on parole with Aziz on that day in 1965 for shooting Brown.

According to The New York Times those charges were later dropped but their criminal history led officers to arrest the duo just days after Malcom X was assassinated.

Then-26-year-old Islam was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Islam had been Malcolm X’s personal driver.

Both Aziz and Islam were paroled in the 80s.  

In the late 1970s Halim signed an affidavit identifying what he claimed to be his true co-conspirators – four men from New Jersey – but a judge dismissed the court filing and upheld Aziz and Islam’s convictions. 

While in prison Islam converted to a mainstream form of the Muslim religion and rejected the Nation of Islam entirely, as reported by The Times. 

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