A man exonerated in the assassination of civil rights leader Malcolm X and the estate of another man whose conviction was thrown out will receive $36 million to settle lawsuits filed on their behalf after prosecutors said the men had not received a fair trial.

New York City will pay $26 million to Muhammad A. Aziz and the estate of Khalil Islam to compensate them for their wrongful murder convictions in 1966, according to the city’s legal office and an attorney for the men. The sum will be divided equally between Aziz and Islam’s estate, said the lawyer, David Shanies.

New York state also has agreed to pay $5 million to Aziz and the same sum to Islam’s estate, according to Shanies and court records.

“These settlements acknowledge Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam’s innocence, and unconscionable violations of the law by police and prosecutors sworn to uphold it,” Shanies said in an email. “The damage caused by wrongful convictions can never be undone, but we owe it to history and to the people whose lives were destroyed to face the truth and try to make amends.”

Stefan Mooklal, deputy chief of staff for New York City’s law department, said his office agreed with former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.’s conclusion that Aziz and Islam had been wrongfully convicted.

“This settlement brings some measure of justice to individuals who spent decades in prison and bore the stigma of being falsely accused of murdering an iconic figure,” Mooklal said in a statement.

The payouts serve as another public mea culpa for the combined 42 years that Aziz, 84, and Islam, who died in 2009, served in prison before prosecutors admitted to making a tragic mistake. The pair was exonerated in November after a jury previously found them guilty of participating in Malcolm X’s 1965 assassination on the stage of Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom.

A Netflix documentary released in 2020 publicized new evidence casting doubt on Aziz and Islam’s involvement, prompting Vance to launch a two-year review of their first-degree murder convictions. He eventually concluded that there were deep flaws in the prosecution, including withheld documents, conflicting eyewitness testimony and apparently solid alibis exposed in the decades since the convictions.

Aziz and Islam were vindicated in November when a New York Supreme Court justice dismissed their convictions decades after Aziz was released on parole in 1985 and Islam in 1987. Talmadge Hayer, who goes by Mujahid Abdul Halim, has confessed to the crime and always maintained that Aziz and Islam were innocent.

Standing before a judge at his exoneration hearing, Aziz said the outcome validated what always had been true.

“While I do not need a court, prosecutors, or a piece of paper to tell me I am innocent, I am glad that my family, my friends and the attorneys who have worked and supported me all these years are finally seeing the truth we have all known officially recognized,” he said.

In July, Aziz and the estate of Islam sued New York City and former law enforcement officials for $40 million in compensation for their wrongful convictions.

Aziz and Islam’s estate had been discussing potential settlements with the city since August, court records from the federal cases in the Eastern District of New York show. Federal Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy recommended that the parties reach an agreement, according to docket entries posted Saturday.

As a Black religious leader and activist, Malcolm X was controversial among both Black and White Americans. He advocated for Black empowerment and the adoption of Islam among Black people while espousing the virulently anti-White ideology of the Nation of Islam, for whom he was a spokesman. But his fiery nature also won him the admiration of many.

Malcolm X eventually left the Nation of Islam after becoming disenchanted with its leader, and softened his views on White people. Rumors that the Nation planned to murder him began to swirl.

At 39, Malcolm X was killed before a speech when an assassin rushed the stage and shot him in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun. Two other people shot him in the ankle and thighs.

The killing prompted both factually grounded debate and conspiracy theories about the identity of the attackers. Shanies and the Innocence Project, a nonprofit pushing for criminal justice reform, have long sought to clear Aziz and Islam’s names.

New York Supreme Court Justice Ellen Biben apologized to Aziz and to Islam’s family as she overturned their convictions last year.

“I regret that this court cannot fully undo the serious miscarriages of justice in this case and give you back the many years that were lost,” she said.

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