Men to get $26mn compensation for their wrongful conviction in Malcolm X's murder

New York: A deal to compensate for the unjust conviction over the murder of Malcolm X has reportedly been made between the state of New York and the men who were exonerated from the case.

Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam will be getting $26 million, apart from $10 million for their spending decades in jail and the sufferings they and their families were made to undergo after their wrongful conviction over 50 years.

The settlement deal came after a Manhattan judge, last year, acquitted Aziz, now 84 and Islam, who died in 2009, after the prosecution said it was the new evidence of witness intimidation and suppression of exculpatory evidence that had undermined the case against the men.

The counsel, David Shanies, who represented Aziz, and Islam, said that the settlement deal was a reminder to be vigilant against the police and prosecutorial misconduct.

The total $36m will be divided equally between Aziz and the estate of Islam, the council said.

Malcolm X was a voice of the Nation of Islam who encouraged Black people to claim their civil rights "by any means necessary" before his pilgrimage to Makkah and his call for racial unity after that. His shift made him an enemy of the Nation of Islam and he was shot to death while beginning a speech on 21 February 1965 at the age of 39.

Attorneys for Aziz and Islam said in complaints that both Aziz and Islam were at their homes in the Bronx when Malcolm X was killed. They said Aziz spent 20 years in prison 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.

Islam spent 22 years in prison and died still hoping to clear his name.

Malcolm X's autobiography, written with Alex Haley, remains a classic work of modern American literature.