Muhammad Aziz, center, stands outside a Manhattan courthouse with members of his family on Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021, after getting exonerated from his conviction in the killing of Malcolm X. Photo: Ryland West/ALM

  It took more than five decades, the advocacy of their attorneys and a new investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office announced after the release of a Netflix documentary, but the men convicted of civil rights leader Malcolm X's assassination were exonerated on Thursday. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ellen Biben cleared Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam in the Feb. 21, 1965, slaying of Malcolm X at Harlem's Audubon Ballroom as he was preparing to deliver a speech. He was 39. Aziz and Islam and a third man, Mujahid Abdul Halim, were convicted of the assassination; Aziz and Islam maintained their innocence and Halim said that the other two men were not involved in the killing. David Shanies of Shanies Law and the Innocence Project fought for Aziz and Islam's exoneration. "These innocent men experienced the agony of decades in prison for a crime they did not commit," Shanies said in a statement released by the Innocence Project. "They were robbed of their freedom in the prime of their lives and branded the killers of a towering civil rights leader." Aziz and Islam were paroled in the 1980s. Islam died in 2009 and Aziz is now 83 years old. Following the release of Netflix's 2020 documentary "Who Killed Malcolm X?," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. announced that his office had reopened the investigation into Malcolm X's killing. The reinvestigation, which began in January 2020, revealed the existence of FBI records proving Aziz and Islam's innocence that were unavailable to both the defense and the prosecution during the trial. There was no evidence tying Aziz and Islam to Malcolm X's slaying, according to the Innocence Project. "Officially correcting the false historical narrative around one of the most significant events in 20th century U.S. history allows us to learn from and prevent future miscarriages of justice," Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck said in a statement. "Indeed, as George Orwell once said: he who controls the past controls the future. Nowhere is that seen more clearly than in this case." The FBI and the New York City Police department told The Associated Press that they cooperated with the investigation but declined to comment further.