NEW YORK (AP) — Three daughters of Malcolm X have accused the CIA, FBI, the New York Police Department and others in a $100 million lawsuit Friday of playing roles in the 1965 assassination of the civil rights leader.
In the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, the daughters — along with the Malcolm X estate — claimed that the agencies were aware of and were involved in the assassination plot and failed to stop the killing.
At a morning news conference, attorney Ben Crump stood with family members as he described the lawsuit, saying he hoped federal and city officials would read it “and learn all the dastardly deeds that were done by their predecessors and try to right these historic wrongs.”
The NYPD and CIA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Nicholas Biase, a spokesperson for the Department of Justice, which was also sued, declined comment. The FBI said in an email that it was its “standard practice” not to comment on litigation.
For decades, more questions than answers have arisen over who was to blame for the death of Malcolm X, who was 39 years old when he was slain on Feb. 21, 1965, at the Audubon Ballroom on West 165th Street in Manhattan as he spoke to several hundred people. Born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, Malcolm X later changed his name to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.
Three men were convicted of crimes in the death but two of them were exonerated in 2021 after investigators took a fresh look at the case and concluded some evidence was shaky and authorities had held back some information.
In the lawsuit, the family said the prosecution team suppressed the government’s role in the assassination.
The lawsuit alleges that there was a “corrupt, unlawful, and unconstitutional” relationship between law enforcement and “ruthless killers that went unchecked for many years and was actively concealed, condoned, protected, and facilitated by government agents,” leading up to the murder of Malcolm X.
According to the lawsuit, the NYPD, coordinating with federal law enforcement agencies, arrested the activist's security detail days before the assassination and intentionally removed their officers from inside the ballroom where Malcolm X was killed. Meanwhile, it adds, federal agencies had personnel, including undercover agents, in the ballroom but failed to protect him.
The lawsuit was not brought sooner because the defendants withheld information from the family, including the identities of undercover "informants, agents and provocateurs" and what they knew about the planning that preceded the attack.
Malcolm X’s wife, Betty Shabazz, the plaintiffs, “and their entire family have suffered the pain of the unknown” for decades, the lawsuit states.
“They did not know who murdered Malcolm X, why he was murdered, the level of NYPD, FBI and CIA orchestration, the identity of the governmental agents who conspired to ensure his demise, or who fraudulently covered-up their role,” it states. "The damage caused to the Shabazz family is unimaginable, immense, and irreparable."
The family announced its intention to sue the law enforcement agencies early last year.
FILE - Malcolm X speaks to reporters in Washington, D.C., May 16, 1963. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Malcolm X's daughters Malikah Shabazz, left, Attallah Shabazz, second from left, Malaak Shabazz, third from left, and Gamilah Shabazz, talk to the media outside the Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx borough of New York, following the death of their mother, Betty Shabazz, June 23, 1997. (AP Photo/Ron Frehm, File)
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister on Friday asked Iran to help secure a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah and appeared to urge it to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
As a top adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei visited Lebanon for talks, Lebanese officials said an American proposal for a cease-fire deal had been passed on to Hezbollah, aiming to end 13 months of exchanges of fire between Israel and the group.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group. Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel the day after Hamas’ surprise attack into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 ignited the war in Gaza – prompting exchanges between the two sides ever since.
Since late September, Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel. More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli fire – 80% of them in the past month -- Lebanon’s Health Ministry says.
According to Lebanese media, U.S. Ambassador Lisa Johnson handed over a draft of a proposed cease-fire deal to Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who has been leading the talks representing Hezbollah.
A Lebanese official confirmed that Beirut has received a copy of a draft proposal based on U.N. Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the last Israel-Hezbollah war, in the summer of 2006. A Lebanese politician said Hezbollah officials had received the draft, were studying it and would express their opinion on it to Berri. The politician, who knows the work of Hezbollah, and the official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media about the ongoing talks.
U.N. resolution 1701, among other things, holds that only the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeepers should operate in southern Lebanon, meaning Hezbollah would have to end its presence there. That provision was never implemented. Lebanon accuses Israel of also violating the resolution by maintaining hold of a small, disputed border area and conducting frequent military overflights over Lebanon.
The Lebanese official did not give details other than to say Israel was insisting that some guarantees be included. The U.S. Embassy refused to either confirm or deny the reports.
In talks with Khamenei's adviser, Ali Larijani, Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, urged Iran to help implement resolution 1701. He said the Lebanese government wants the war to end and the resolution to be implemented “in all its details,” according to a statement on the talks issued by his office.
Mikati, who in recent weeks has become more critical of Iran’s role in Lebanon, also said the government wants Iran to help Lebanon’s national unity and not take any stance backing one party against another.
Iran’s backing for Hezbollah has helped the group, which is the most powerful faction among Lebanon’s Shiite Muslims, dominate the country’s politics the last decade.
After meeting Mikati and Berri, Larijani said his visit’s main aim was “to loudly say that we will stand by Lebanon’s government and people.”
Asked if he was trying to thwart U.S. cease-fire mediation, Larijani said, “We are not trying to blow up any effort, but we want to solve the problem and we will stand by Lebanon, whatever the circumstances.”
An Israeli airstrike on a home in the southern province of Nabatiyeh killed a mother, father and their three children on Friday, state media said, while three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province.
Israeli forces also carried out new strikes around the Lebanese capital on Friday. Three waves of air raids hit buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs, setting off explosions in the area known as Dahiyeh.
In an earlier strike on the southeastern edge of Beirut, images taken by an Associated Press photographer captured a rocket about to strike an 11-story residential building in the Tayouneh neighborhood – then showed a blast of flame erupting from the side of the building. Much of a lower level of the building was smashed to rubble.
There were no immediate reports of casualties in any of the strikes. In each case, the Israeli military had issued a warning before the attack, saying it was targeting Hezbollah facilities.
Near the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek, rescue workers called off their search for survivors from an Israeli strike a civil defense center, killing 14 civil defense workers and volunteers.
The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment on why the civil defense center was targeted late Thursday. Lebanon’s civil defense forces have no affiliation with Hezbollah, and provide crucial rescue and medical services in one of the world’s most war-torn nations.
Israel has expanded its operations in Lebanon even as it continues its campaign in the Gaza Strip, vowing to destroy Hamas, which is also backed by Iran.
Funerals were held Friday for 11 Palestinians killed Thursday in a series of Israeli airstrikes in and around the central Gaza Strip city of Deir al-Balah. Two children were among the dead, seen with the other dead by an AP reporter.
On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council’s 10 elected members circulated a draft resolution demanding “an immediate, unconditional and permanent cease-fire” in Gaza. The U.S., Israel’s closest ally, holds the key to whether the U.N. Security Council adopts the resolution. The four other permanent members — Russia, China, Britain and France — are expected to support it or abstain.
The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducting 250 others.
Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives since then have killed more than 43,000 people in Gaza, Palestinian health officials say. The officials don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants but say more than half of those killed have been women and children.
Rising reported from Bangkok. Abby Sewell in Beirut, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, contributed to this report.
Civil defense workers extinguish a fire as smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Residents check the site of an Israeli airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Civil defense workers extinguish a fire as smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet prepares to hit a building in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Thick smoke and flames erupt from an Israeli airstrike on Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet prepares to hit a building in Tayouneh, Beirut, Lebanon, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
