NEW YORK: A daughter of African-American civil rights activist Malcolm X was found dead inside her home in Brooklyn.
Malikah Shabazz, 56, was discovered by her daughter inside the Midwood residence. Investigators do not suspect foul play, sources said. An autopsy will determine Shabazz’s cause of death.
NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said that Shabazz had been “ill for a period of time” but didn’t elaborate. “At this point in time, working with other authorities, the medical examiner, and speaking to the family, she had been ill for a period of time, and at this point, nothing appears suspicious,” Shea told local media. He added that cops were “absolutely not” looking for a suspect.
“I’m deeply saddened by the death of Malikah Shabazz,” Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., said in a post on Twitter. “My heart goes out to her family, the descendants of Dr. Betty Shabazz and Malcolm X. Dr. Shabazz was pregnant with Malikah and her twin sister, Malaak, when Brother Malcolm was assassinated.”
Malikah Shabazz and her twin sister, Malaak, are the youngest of six daughters of Malcolm X and his wife, Betty Shabazz. The twins were born seven months after the civil rights activist was killed.
READ MORE: Two men exonerated after decades in prison for Malcolm X’s murder
Shabazz had several run-ins with the law over the years. She and her daughter, Bettih Shabazz, were arrested in a Walmart parking lot in Maryland in January 2017 on animal cruelty charges. Several injured dogs were found subjected to “inhumane conditions” inside a stolen U-Haul truck the pair were driving.
Shabazz also pleaded guilty in 2011 to identity theft charges and racking up more than $55,000 in someone else’s name. The victim in that case, Khaula Bakr, was the widow of one of Malcolm X’s bodyguards. Shabazz was sentenced to probation.
I’m deeply saddened by the death of #MalikahShabazz. My heart goes out to her family, the descendants of Dr. Betty Shabazz and Malcolm X.
Dr. Shabazz was pregnant with Malikah and her twin sister, Malaak, when Brother Malcolm was assassinated.
Be at peace, Malikah. pic.twitter.com/YOlYoW4xDC
— Be A King (@BerniceKing) November 23, 2021
Shabazz’s death came just one week after two of Malcolm X’s convicted killers — Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam — were exonerated. Aziz and Islam each spent some two decades in jail for the February 21, 1965, shooting of Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. Both were paroled in the 1980s.
The duo and a third man, Mujahid Abdul Halim, were found guilty of the murder in March 1966 and sentenced to life in prison a month later. No physical evidence linked Aziz or Islam to the murder or the crime scene, and both had alibis backed by testimony.
Halim, who admitted to being one of the killers, vouched for Aziz and Islam, testifying in the late ’70s that the men had “nothing to do with it.” He identified four co-conspirators, members of the Nation of Islam from New Jersey — but no one else was ever arrested. Halim was paroled in 2010.
