Man denies author's claim that he killed Malcolm X

NEWARK, N.J. (RNS) For 46 years, the chief assassin of slain civil
rights icon Malcolm X has been hiding in plain sight in Newark,
according to a major new biography of the African-American leader
released Monday (April 4).

Al-Mustafa Shabazz is a 72-year-old Muslim who is married to a
community leader who owns a boxing gym in Newark. A new book, "Malcolm
X: A Life of Reinvention," by Columbia University historian Manning
Marable, argues that Shabazz was behind Malcolm X's 1965 assassination.

Marable, who died unexpectedly Friday (April 2) after a long
illness, claimed to have evidence that Shabazz was once known as William
Bradley, whom many people over the years have placed at the shooting in
New York City.

Marable writes that he confirmed that the two men are one and the
same through multiple sources inside the black Muslim community.

New Jersey Department of Corrections records list Bradley's alias as
Al-Mustafa Shabazz, and East Orange Police Sgt. Andrew Di Elmo also
confirmed that the mug shot accompanying the record belonged to Bradley,
aka Shabazz.

William Bradley was accused of being one of the killers more than 30
years ago in a sworn affidavit by Talmadge Hayer, one of the three men
convicted of Malcolm X's assassination.

In his book, Marable also credits Abdur-Rahman Muhammad, a historian
who writes for the Association for the Study of African American Life
and History, with linking Bradley's name to that of Shabazz.

Attorney J. Edward Waller, who is representing Al-Mustafa Shabazz,
disputed the claim on Sunday, saying, "I've spoken to him (Shabazz) and
he categorically denies he was involved in the assassination of Malcolm
X."

Shabazz is married to Carolyn Kelley Shabazz, a prominent civic
leader in Newark, who said her husband did not have any association with
the killing

"As God, Allah, is my witness, there's no way my husband could have
had a negative thought in his head about Malcolm X," she said Saturday,
before Waller began speaking for the couple. "My husband is no more
guilty about what happened with Malcolm than you or I."

In the book, Marable claims "Willie Bradley" was just 15 feet away
from Malcolm X in the auditorium where he was about to speak on the
afternoon of Feb. 21, 1965, when "he elevated his sawed-off shotgun from
under his coat, took careful aim, and fired ... This was the kill shot,
the blow that executed Malcolm X."

Clement Price, a history professor at Rutgers University-Newark,
said he and Marable come from the same generation of professionally
trained black historians, and while he had not yet read the new
biography, the historian's scholarship is impeccable.

"Manning Marable was a very conscientious historian, a masterful
researcher, and an interpreter of complicated truths," Price said. "It
would be out of character for him to not be duly diligent in this very
important matter of Malcolm's assassination."

Since Muhammad accused Bradley last year of being "the man who fired
the first and deadliest shot" at Malcolm X, not only Marable, but
others, including investigative journalist Karl Evanzz and documentary
filmmaker Omar Shabazz, have named Bradley.

"There's never been a question that William Bradley pulled the
trigger. This information is well-established. The only question has
been, who is Bradley and where does he live?" said Muhammad.

According to state Department of Correction records, "William
Bradley, aka Al-Mustafa Shabazz," served time in prison for charges
including threatening to kill three people. He was released in February
1998.

Marable and Muhammad claim some of the plotters accused in the
killing came from Newark's Mosque No. 25, where Bradley was a member.

Newark City Councilman Ron Rice said speculation about the Newark
mosque's role in Malcolm X's assassination had been circulating for as
long as he could remember.

"There has been a long belief in the underbrush, argued by some,
disputed by others, that a number of Malcolm X's alleged murderers came
out of Number 25 -- the Newark mosque," Rice said. "But I've never heard
the rumor of Carolyn's husband being associated."

Rice said the group had once fostered a reputation for militancy and
had called for the death of Malcolm X, who had publicly split from the
Nation of Islam.

"The Newark mosque was seen as a radical mosque or extremist mosque.
That's always been alleged," he said.

When asked Saturday whether her husband was Bradley, Carolyn Shabazz
did not deny it, but said, simply, that legally his name is Shabazz.

"We are not going to take this lying down. They are looking for a
scapegoat," she said. "Nobody has to take this character assassination."

(Amy Ellis Nutt and Barry Carter write for The Star-Ledger in
Newark. Staff writers Aliza Appelbaum, Jessica Calefati, David
Giambusso, Tom Meagher and Stephen Stirling contributed to this report.)