- Max Matza
- BBC
Elisa Shabazz accuses US security agencies of concealing evidence of her father’s murder from the site of his assassination 58 years ago
The daughter of black Muslim civil rights activist Malcolm X said she will sue New York City police and other agencies including the CIA and FBI over his 1965 murder.
Elisa Shabazz says US officials fraudulently concealed evidence revealing that they “conspired and carried out their plan to assassinate” her father.
Shabazz announced the planned legal action at a press conference from the site where her father was shot and killed in New York 58 years ago.
One of the lawyers said the FBI and CIA were also mentioned in the case’s legal file.
Elisa Shabazz, now 60, was two years old when she saw her father shot dead. Three armed men fired about 21 rounds at him as he prepared to speak at a hall in Harlem.
“For years, our family has fought to uncover the truth about his murder,” she said Tuesday at the site, which has since been converted into a memorial site, where she filed notices of claims in preparation for filing a lawsuit.
Benjamin Crump, the attorney representing the family, alleged at the press conference that powerful figures in the US government conspired to kill Malcolm X. He mentioned by name former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, during his remarks.
Crump said Malcolm X’s family intends to file a wrongful death lawsuit seeking damages in the region of $100 million.
He added, “It is not just about the three parties.” “It is about those who conspired with the enforcers to carry out this dastardly act.”
Malcolm X holds his daughter, Elisa Shabazz, a year before his death
The New York Police Department told the BBC it would not comment on pending lawsuits. The FBI and CIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.
Malcolm X was the main spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, which advocated secession for black Americans, but he later broke with it. He was 39 years old when he was killed.
A man from the Nation of Islam confessed to killing him.
And in 2021, two more men who had been convicted of the murder of Malcolm X were acquitted after a New York state judge declared there was a miscarriage of justice.
The two men were later fully acquitted after the New York attorney general found that prosecutors had withheld evidence likely to exonerate them of the murder.
