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US: Two to be cleared of assassinating Malcolm X after 55 years

Muhammad Aziz, 83 and the late Khalil Islam, will be exonerated after spending decades in prison

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Two men convicted in the assassination of Malcolm X are set to be cleared after more than half a century, with prosecutors now saying authorities withheld evidence in the civil rights leader’s killing, according to a news report Wednesday.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam, who spent decades in prison for the crime, were being exonerated after a nearly two-year investigation by their lawyers and the Manhattan district attorney’s office. A court date is expected Thursday.

“These men did not get the justice that they deserved,” District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. told the newspaper.

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Malcolm X was gunned down as he began a speech in Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom on Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965.

The two men were then known as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson. Aziz, 83, was released in 1985. Islam was released two years later and died in 2009.

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