2 Men Guilty Of Activist Malcolm X Murder To Be Exonerated After 56 Years

For more than half-a-century the official record has held that three members of the Black nationalist group Nation of Islam -- which the influential Malcolm X had recently renounced -- shot the iconic civil rights leader.

Manhattan's district attorney on Thursday is set to request the exoneration of two men found guilty of the 1965 assassination of civil rights leader Malcolm X, a remarkable turnabout that admits the prosecution of one of America's most high-profile murders resulted in a grave miscarriage of justice.

For more than half-a-century the official record has held that three members of the Black nationalist group Nation of Islam -- which the influential Malcolm X had recently renounced -- shot the iconic civil rights leader when he arrived to speak at the podium of a Harlem ballroom.

All three men were convicted in 1966 -- but historians have long cast doubt on that thesis.

And now a 22-month investigation conducted jointly by the Manhattan district attorney's office and lawyers for the two men found that prosecutors, the FBI and the New York Police Department withheld evidence that would likely have led to the acquittal of the two men.