NEW YORK — Fifty-nine years to the day of the assassination of Malcolm X, two new witnesses shared affidavits Wednesday that Ben Crump and other civil rights lawyers say support theories of a conspiracy in Malcolm X’s death.
For decades, some civil rights leaders have said the New York City Police Department and the FBI were behind the assassination of Malcolm X, which took place at Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965. Over the years, bits of information have trickled out that could support the conspiracy theory. And now, two former members of Malcolm X’s security detail are saying they were falsely arrested a few days before the civil rights leader, born Malcolm Little, was fatally shot in front of his wife and daughters. They are claiming they were arrested to prevent them from being around to protect Malcolm X when he was killed.
Khaleel Sultarn Sayyed, 81, and Walter Bowe, 93, were part of Malcolm X’s security detail in the 1960s. Both men are now saying through affidavits that they were wrongly arrested for an alleged plan to bomb the Statue of Liberty that they believe was concocted by authorities. They say they believe they were arrested to insure they could not protect Malcolm X when he was fatally shot in front of his wife and daughters.
“I believe I was detained … in order to insure Malcolm X’s planned assassination would be successful,” Sayyed said during a news conference Wednesday at the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, the current configuration of the Audubon Ballroom.
Sayyed said that in the 1960s, he was taking a gap year from his electrical engineering studies at Howard University to help his father in the family shop. Sayyed said a new acquaintance introduced him to Robert Wood, an undercover NYPD officer, and Wood gathered Sayyed and others to talk about bombing the Statue of Liberty and other monuments. Meeting attendees, like Sayyed, did not seem to take the idea seriously and laughed at Wood. But on Feb. 16, 1965, five days before Malcolm X’s killing, Sayyed was arrested in the alleged Statue of Liberty plot.
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Fellow witness Walter Bowe, said to be 93 and ailing, echoed Sayyed’s comments in an affidavit read by lawyer Nabeha Shaer. Bowe did not attend the news conference for health reasons. In his affidavit, he mentioned the NYPD’s now defunct Bureau of Special Services and Investigations, also know as BOSSI.
“I believe that had I been present in the Audubon that day, I may have been able to prevent the government’s conspiracy to assassinate Malcolm X,” Shaer read from Bowe’s statement. “It is my belief that Wood, the NYPD and BOSSI conspired deliberately to have me and members of Malcolm X’s known security detail arrested, preventing us from being present at the Ballroom and guaranteeing that the assassination of Malcolm X was successful.”
Malcolm X was long a target of federal and local authorities for his talk encouraging Black people to empower themselves “by any means necessary.”
On the day that the shots rang out as Malcolm X spoke on stage, Mujahid Abdul Halim was arrested at the ballroom and Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam were arrested in the days after. A year later, Halim confessed he was involved in the murder and implicated members of a mosque in Newark, but the legal system did not follow up. Halim went to prison and was released in 2010.
Aziz went to prison and was released in 1985 after 20 years. Islam was released from prison in 1987, and died in 2009.
In November 2021, a judge in New York exonerated Aziz and Islam in a move that would become symbolic of another step toward victory for those who believe authorities were involved in Malcolm X’s murder.
Long before the exonerations, many doubted the guilt of Aziz and Islam, who could have been cleared by evidence withheld by an FBI led by J. Edgar Hoover and the New York City Police Department, according to a New York Times report.
Interestingly, the exonerations happened on the same day of the year that Spike Lee’s iconic film “Malcolm X” was released in 1992.
Malcolm X was long a target of federal and local authorities for his talk encouraging Black people to empower themselves “by any means necessary.”
Neither the NYPD nor the FBI’s New York office immediately responded to messages requesting comment.
Wood died in November 2020, but a letter surfaced that was allegedly written on his deathbed. The letter allegedly included a confession that Wood purposely lured Sayyed and Bowe into a phony plot to lay the groundwork to their arrests.
Crump said at the news conference that authorities for months have not complied with his requests for records related to the death of Malcolm X, but he added the pursuit of documents would continue.
“We will dot every I, we will cross every T, and we will leave no stone unturned,” Crump said.
