(NewsNation) — Attorney Ben Crump announced two new witnesses in the investigation of civil rights icon Malcolm X‘s death on the 59th anniversary of his assassination.
During Wednesday’s press conference, Crump and co-counsel Ray Hamlin and Flint Taylor introduced two new witnesses, Khaleel Sayeed Ramakrishna and Walter Bowie, who have offered evidence in the case.
A media release from Crump’s firm labels the witnesses as security associates who have never spoken publicly before and were arrested one week before the X’s assassination.
“I believe I was detained in this conspiracy by the NYPD and FBI in order to ensure Malcolm X’s planned assassination would be successful. Had I not been arrested, I would have attended his speech and could have served as part of his security detail,” Ramakrishna said.
In an affidavit, Bowie said he was arrested on February 16, 1965, by the NYPD which resulted in his being unable to attend X’s speech at Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom.
“It is my belief that the NYPD deliberately conspired to have me and known members of Malcolm X’s known security detail arrested, preventing us from being present at the ballroom, guaranteeing that the assassination of Malcolm X was successful,” Bowie said in his affidavit which read by an attorney during the press conference. “I believe that had I been present in the Audubon Ballroom that day, I may have been able to prevent the government’s conspiracy to assassinate Malcolm X.”
One of the civil rights era’s most controversial and compelling figures, Malcolm X rose to fame as the Nation of Islam’s chief spokesperson, proclaiming the Black Muslim organization’s message at the time: racial separatism as a road to self-actualization. He famously urged Black people to claim civil rights “by any means necessary.”
He split from the Nation of Islam about a year before he was gunned down as he began a speech in the Audubon Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965, at age 39, in front of his wife and daughters.
For years, conspiracies have flown around that he was murdered by federal and New York government agencies, often listing the NYPD, FBI, and CIA as co-conspirators. Those theories have never been proven.
Muhammad Aziz, Islam and a third man, Mujahid Abdul Halim — known at the time of the killing as Talmadge Hayer and also as Thomas Hagan — were convicted of murder in March 1966 and sentenced to life in prison.
Hagan said he was one of three gunmen who shot Malcolm X, but he testified that neither Aziz nor Islam was involved. The two, then known as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15 Johnson, maintained throughout that they were innocent and offered alibis at their 1966 trial. No physical evidence linked them to the crime.
Hagan was paroled in 2010. He identified two other men as gunmen, but no one else was ever arrested.
Aziz was released in 1985. Islam was released two years later and died in 2009.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.