Three daughters of Malcolm X, a Black empowerment and civil rights icon in the United States, have accused the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the New York Police Department (NYPD) of being in part responsible for their father’s 1965 assassination.On Friday, the family filed a $100m wrongful-death lawsuit against the three agencies.
The legal action is the latest turn in the decades-long fallout from Malcolm X’s killing, which has prompted many questions but few answers.
He was shot dead in February 1965, when gunmen opened fire on the 39-year-old shortly after he began speaking at an event in the Harlem neighbourhood of New York.
Friday’s lawsuit charges that a “corrupt, unlawful, and unconstitutional” relationship between law enforcement and the “ruthless killers” allowed for the assassination.
The ties between the government agencies and the killers “went unchecked for many years and was actively concealed, condoned, protected, and facilitated by government agents”, the lawsuit alleges.
The suit further claims that the government agencies took several missteps that allowed for the killing to unfold.
The NYPD, coordinating with federal law enforcement, had arrested Malcolm X’s security detail just days before the assassination. The police force also intentionally removed officers from inside the ballroom, according to the suit.
Plus, the court filing says, the federal agencies had undercover p …
