Khalil Islam

The Crime

Just after 3 p.m. on Feb. 21, 1965, Malcolm was starting to give a speech at the Audubon Ballroom on 165th Street and Broadway in upper Manhattan, New York. Before he began, a disturbance roiled the audience. Malcolm called out, “Everybody be cool now. Don’t get excited.”

Then, a man with a sawed-off shotgun rushed the stage and fired. Two other gunmen, one with a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol and the other with a nine-millimeter Luger stepped up and shot Malcolm again. 

Malcolm was pronounced dead at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center at 3:30 p.m. 

A member of Malcolm’s security detail shot one of the attackers, 22-year-old Talmadge Hayer, and the crowd subdued him until police arrived. Mr. Hayer, who later changed his name to Mujahid Abdul Halim, a resident of Paterson, New Jersey, was charged with murder. 

Police recovered several rounds of .45-caliber ammunition in his pocket. Ronald Timberlake recovered the semi-automatic pistol. He said he picked the gun up after Mr. Halim dropped it. Mr. Timberlake said he took the gun to his home in Brooklyn and disassembled it before turning the weapon over to the FBI.

A man named Charles Blackwell said he recovered the shotgun and the Luger, but he would give differing accounts of what he did with the weapons. The police later found the shotgun in a room near the ballroom’s stage. The Luger was never recovered.

The Investigation

The FBI joined the New York Police Department in the investigation. Law enforcement believed the killing was connected to Malcolm’s split in 1964 with Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam and Malcolm’s founding of the Organization of Afro-American Unity. 

On Feb. 26, 1965, police arrested 26-year-old Muhammad Aziz, then known as Norman 3X Butler. On March 3, 1965, police arrested 30-year-old Khalil Islam, then known as Thomas 15X Johnson. They were arrested at their homes in the Bronx. Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam knew each other from their work at the Nation of Islam mosque in Harlem. Mr. Aziz, Mr. Islam, and Mr. Halim were charged with Malcolm’s murder.

The Trial

The combined trial of Mr. Aziz, Mr. Halim, and Mr. Islam began on Jan. 20, 1966, in New York County Supreme Court. There was no physical or forensic evidence connecting Mr. Aziz or Mr. Islam to the murder. 

Along with the .45-caliber ammunition police found in Mr. Halim’s pocket, a police witness testified that bullets removed from Malcolm’s body were consistent with the gun Mr. Timberlake gave to the FBI. In addition, a police witness testified that Mr. Halim was the source of a thumbprint found on a strip of film on a smoke bomb recovered from the ballroom. 

The state presented 10 witnesses who said they saw Mr. Halim at the ballroom. Of those 10, six also said they saw Mr. Aziz; four said they saw Mr. Islam. Their accounts varied, particularly in their testimony about how the events unfolded. 

Cary Thomas testified that he arrived early at the Audubon and saw Mr. Islam, whom he recognized from a Nation of Islam mosque in Manhattan, sitting in a booth facing the stage. Mr. Thomas said that after he heard the shotgun blast, he looked at the stage and saw Mr. Islam holding a sawed-off shotgun. He said he then saw Mr. Halim and Mr. Aziz race forward, guns in hand, and begin shooting. 

Defense attorneys tried to exclude or limit Mr. Thomas’ testimony, questioning whether he was mentally competent to testify. On cross-examination, Mr. Thomas denied ever receiving psychiatric treatment. The defense then introduced records of Mr. Thomas’ hospitalization. The judge allowed the defense to present the records after Mr. Thomas left the witness stand.

Fred Williams testified that he heard the shotgun blast and pushed his wife to the floor to protect her. He looked up, heard another blast and pistol shots, and saw Mr. Islam holding a sawed-off shotgun. 

The witnesses differed on where Mr. Aziz and the other man sat in the ballroom. Some said near or in front, others said at least 12 rows back. 

Attorneys for Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam tried to show other discrepancies in the testimony of the state’s witnesses. One first said Mr. Islam had a pistol, then later said he had a shotgun.

Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam both testified. Mr. Aziz said that on Feb. 21, 1965, he was unable to run because he had injuries to his right leg that left him with a limp. That morning, he had gone to the emergency room of Jacobi Hospital, where he was treated by Dr. Kenneth Seslowe. He came home around 1 p.m. and rested. Mr. Aziz said he heard about the shooting on the radio. Dr. Seslowe testified and confirmed Mr. Aziz’s emergency room visit.

Mr. Islam testified that he was at home all day on Feb. 21 and did not leave until the evening. He said he did not see Mr. Aziz at any point that day. Spouses and friends of both men also testified that they were at home at the time Malcolm was murdered. 

In addition, Mr. Aziz presented testimony from a man named Ernest Greene, who said he saw the shooting and that the man with the shotgun was “stout and very dark and had a very deep beard.” This did not fit the description of Mr. Islam, who was of average build, light-skinned, and clean-shaven at the time of his arrest.

Mr. Halim testified that he was not a Black Muslim or a member of any organization affiliated with Elijah Muhammad. He said he didn’t belong to a mosque. He said he didn’t know Mr. Aziz or Mr. Islam and had no role in Malcolm’s death. He admitted that he was present and that he pocketed the ammunition after finding it in the ballroom’s bathroom.

Three days after Mr. Halim testified, he returned to the witness stand and was questioned by Mr. Aziz’s attorney, William Chance. Now, Mr. Halim confessed to taking part in Malcolm’s murder but said that Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam were not involved. He said he had never met them until they were all charged with the crime. 

Mr. Halim said he shot Malcolm with a .45-caliber pistol. He said that he and another man sat in the front row with pistols. A third man sat a few rows back with the shotgun, and a fourth man started a “commotion” by pretending his pocket was being picked. He refused to name the other participants, but he said none were Black Muslims. 

Mr. Halim said he had decided to “tell the truth” after a brief conversation with Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam earlier that day. 

The jury convicted all three men of murder on Mar. 11, 1966. A month later, they were sentenced to life in prison. 

In April 1968, the First Department of the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division affirmed the convictions. The New York Court of Appeals affirmed that decision a year later.

The Exoneration

Nine years later, Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam moved to vacate their convictions, primarily on the basis of newly discovered evidence, including redacted FBI records. Ten affidavits were submitted in support of the motions. 

Mr. Halim’s affidavits said his co-conspirators included Leon Davis, Benjamin Thomas, a man he knew as “Wilbur or Kinly,” and William X. He said they were all Nation of Islam members from New Jersey. 

Benjamin Karim, Malcolm’s assistant minister, said in an affidavit that he spoke to the Audubon audience just before Malcolm and did not see Mr. Aziz nor Mr. Islam. Both men, Mr. Karim said, were known to Malcolm’s security team and would have drawn attention had they been present. 

The motion also said that an undercover police officer named Eugene Roberts had been in the ballroom and witnessed the murder. Officer Roberts’ presence had become known in an unrelated 1970 criminal trial. In that case, he testified, he was posing as a member of Malcolm’s security team. He said that “two individuals near the front of the auditorium jumped up” to create a distraction. Shots were fired as Officer Roberts went to confront them. Officer Roberts said Mr. Halim shot at him but missed and that he then hit Mr. Halim with a chair.

The prosecution filed a response quoting Officer Roberts as saying he had no reason to believe Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam were innocent and that the New York Police Department was not involved in Malcolm’s death. 

New York County Supreme Court Justice Harold Rothwax denied the motion to vacate on Nov. 1, 1978.  

Mr. Aziz was released from prison on June 24, 1985. Mr. Islam was released on Feb. 10, 1987. He died in 2009. Mr. Halim was released from prison in 2010, although he had been on work release for the previous 22 years, working as a counselor.

In 2010, historian Abdur-Rahman Muhammad published on his blog that William Bradley from Newark, New Jersey, was the man with the sawed-off shotgun. Mr. Bradley had changed his name to Al-Mustafa Shabazz. Mr. Muhammad’s blog did not give the source of this information. Mr. Muhammad was a central character in a Netflix documentary, Who Killed Malcolm X, that began streaming on Feb. 7, 2020. 

At the time of the Netflix release, New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) began working with the Innocence Project and with the office of civil rights attorney David Shanies to reinvestigate the case. 

On Nov. 18, 2021, the district attorney’s office moved to vacate the convictions and dismiss the charges against Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam. The motion said that it could not make a determination on their actual innocence, but that the men were denied a fair trial because their attorneys were denied access to exculpatory evidence that resulted in acquittals at trial. Much of this new evidence had been in the possession of the FBI. It included:

• An FBI report from Feb. 22, 1965 that said “the killers of Malcolm X were possibly imported to NYC” and that the shooters were “two men, occupying the front seats, left side of the middle aisle.” The report gave a description of the man with the shotgun as “a Black man, age twenty-eight, six feet two inches, two hundred pounds, heavy build, dark complexion, wearing gray coat.” The description did not fit Mr. Islam. 
• FBI reports detailing that one of the men who testified against Mr. Aziz was an FBI informant. 
• An FBI report suggesting a motive for the murder, which had to do with Malcolm accusing another man of stealing money from his organization. 
• Reports that several witnesses failed to identify Mr. Islam as one of the shooters. 
• A file dated Sep. 28, 1965 on William X Bradley, containing information compiled between 1963 and 1965. Mr. Bradley, who was described as dark-skinned and stocky, was listed as a Nation of Mr. Islam “strongman” who had engaged in acts of violence. The file also noted he had served as a machine gunner in the Marine Corps. 

The motion to vacate said that both Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam had alibis supported by friends and family, and that the prosecution had offered no evidence that Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam knew Mr. Halim, who was from New Jersey and affiliated with a mosque in Paterson. Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam were members of the Harlem mosque. 

On Nov. 19, 2021, the New York Supreme Court vacated the convictions and dismissed the charges against Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam.

In April 2022, Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam’s estate were each awarded $5 million by the New York Court of Claims. In October 2022, Mr. Aziz and Mr. Islam’s estate split a $26 million settlement of a civil lawsuit.