According to Ilyasah Shabazz, US officials fraudulently concealed evidence that they conspired to assassinate her father 58 years ago. She announced the planned legal action at the site of his fatal shooting in New York.
A lawyer said the FBI and CIA were also named in the legal filing. Mrs Shabazz, 60, saw her father gunned down when she was two years old. Three armed men shot him 21 times as he prepared to speak at a Harlem auditorium. As she filed notices of claims, a precursor to filing a lawsuit, she said that her family has been fighting for years for the truth to emerge concerning his murder, which was turned into a memorial on Tuesday.
At the news conference, Benjamin Crump – the lawyer who is representing the family – alleged that powerful figures in the American government had conspired to kill Malcolm X. He referred to former FBI Director J Edgar Hoover throughout his remarks. Mr Crump said Malcolm X’s family intends to file a wrongful death lawsuit seeking damages in the range of $100 million (£83 million).
As he said, the case isn’t just about the triggermen, but those who conspired with them to do this dastardly deed.” According to the NYPD, it will not comment on the lawsuit. A request for comment was not immediately answered by the FBI and CIA. Before he split from the Nation of Islam – which advocated separatism for black Americans – Malcolm X was the lead spokesman for the group. When he was killed, he was 39 years old.
A Nation of member confessed to killing him. In 2021, two other men convicted of murdering him were acquitted after a New York state judge declared a miscarriage of justice.
After New York’s attorney general found that prosecutors withheld evidence that could have cleared the men of murder, the two men were fully exonerated. Their families sued the city and state and won $26m and $10m, respectively.