Aziz and Islam each spent more than two decades in prison before being granted parole. Aziz, who was released in 1985, is now 84. Islam, who was freed two years later, died in 2009. He was 74.
Two men whose convictions in the 1965 assassination of civil rights leader Malcolm X were overturned last November are set to be awarded $26 million in settlements with New York City.
“It’s tragic that he died never knowing that his name would be cleared,” an attorney for the two men toldTheir exonerations—and respective suits against the city, which were filed in July—came after a 22-month investigation in collaboration with the Innocence Project. “This case should have been overturned decades ago,” said Barry Scheck, the Innocence Project’s co-founder.