Three of Malcom X’s daughters have accused the CIA, FBI, and the New York Police Department of playing roles in the 1965 assassination of the civil rights leader in a $100m (£79.3m) lawsuit.
In the suit filed in Manhattan federal court, the daughters, along with the Malcolm X estate, claimed that the agencies were aware of and were involved in the assassination plot and failed to stop the killing.
At a morning news conference, the family’s attorney Ben Crump stood with family members as he described the lawsuit, saying he hoped federal and city officials would read it “and learn all the dastardly deeds that were done by their predecessors and try to right these historic wrongs.”
For decades, there have been questions over who was to blame for the death of Malcolm X, who was 39 years old when he was killed on February 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan as he spoke to several hundred people.
Three men were convicted of crimes in the death but two of them were exonerated in 2021 after investigators revisited the case and concluded some evidence was shaky and authorities had held back some information.
In the lawsuit, the family said the prosecution team suppressed the government’s role in the assassination.
The lawsuit alleges that there was a “corrupt, unlawful, and unconstitutional” relationship between law enforcement and “ruthless killers that went unchecked for many years and was actively concealed, condoned, protected, and facilitated by government agents,” leading up to the murder of Malcolm X.
According to the lawsuit, the NYPD, coordinating with federal law enforcement agencies, arrested the activist’s security detail days before the assassination and intentionally removed their officers from inside the ballroom where Malcolm X was killed.
Meanwhile, it alleges, federal agencies had personnel, including undercover agents, in the ballroom but failed to protect him.
The lawsuit was not brought sooner because the defendants withheld information from the family, including the identities of undercover “informants, agents and provocateurs”, it claims.
Malcolm X’s wife, Betty Shabazz, the claimants, “and their entire family have suffered the pain of the unknown” for decades, the lawsuit states.
“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.”
The family announced its intention to sue the law enforcement agencies early last year.
