Malcolm X assassin is freed on parole in NYC

The only man ever to admit shooting Malcolm X has been freed on parole, 45 years after he helped assassinate the civil rights leader in New York City.

State Department of Correctional Services spokeswoman Linda Foglia says Thomas Hagan was freed Tuesday.

He had spent two days a week at a Manhattan prison under a work-release program.

The 69-year-old Hagan was the last man still serving time in the 1965 killing. He and two others were convicted of murder.

Hagan has said the others were not involved. They maintained their innocence and were paroled in the 1980s.

Hagan said he was one of three gunmen who shot Malcolm X at Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom. He has repeatedly expressed regret.

He applied for parole 16 times before a board approved his request last month.

He has repeatedly expressed regret for his role in the assassination, which he described in a 2008 court filing as the deed of a young man who “acted out of rage on impulse and loyalty” to religious leaders.

“I’ve had a lot of time, a heck of a lot of time, to think about it,” Hagan told a parole board last month, according to a transcript of the interview.

“I understand a lot better the dynamics of movements and what can happen inside movements, and conflicts that can come up, but I have deep regrets about my participation in that,” said Hagan, adding that he had earned a master’s degree in sociology since his conviction.

The board granted Hagan’s parole request on his 17th try. He was initially scheduled for release Wednesday, but the date was moved up because his paperwork was completed, Foglia said.

The Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, an organization founded by the civil rights leader’s late widow, hasn’t taken a position on Hagan’s parole, board chairman Zead Ramadan said.

“We just don’t think it’s ours to decide the fate of this man.

We allowed the laws of this nation to develop that,” Ramadan said.

Members of the Shabazz family didn’t immediately respond to a request made Monday through the center.

But another group, the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee, decried Hagan’s parole at a news conference earlier this month.

The organization holds essay contests and other events in his memory.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted Hagan and his co-defendants, had no immediate comment on his release.

Under his work-release arrangement, Hagan also spent five days a week working in settings that included a homeless shelter; he spent those nights at his Brooklyn home with his family. He told the
parole board he hopes to become a substance abuse counselor.