Malcolm X killer walks free with deep regrets

NEW YORK - The only man ever to admit involvement in the assassination of Malcolm X was freed on parole yesterday, 45 years after he helped gun down the civil rights leader.

Thomas Hagan was the last man still serving time in the 1965 killing, part of the skein of violence that wound through the cultural and political upheaval of the 1960s.

He was freed from a Manhattan prison where he spent two days a week under a work-release programme.

Hagan, 69, has repeatedly expressed sorrow for being one of the gunmen who fired on Malcolm X, killing one of the civil rights era's most polarising and compelling figures. One of the groups dedicated to Malcolm X's memory condemned Hagan's parole.

Hagan declined to comment after his release. "I really haven't had any time to gather my thoughts."

He acknowledged he was one of three men who shot Malcolm X in front of a crowd of hundreds - including several of his young children - as the civil rights leader began a speech at Harlem's Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965.

Two other accomplices created a distraction in the audience, Hagan has said.

But he said the two men convicted with him were not involved. They, too, maintained their innocence and were paroled in the 1980s. No one else has ever been charged, a fact that has perpetuated debate and theories surrounding the slaying.

The Manhattan District Attorney's office, which prosecuted Hagan and his co-defendants, declined to comment on his release or his account of the killing.

Hagan tried 17 times before being approved last month for parole. He had been sentenced to up to life in prison for what 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.

The assassins shot Malcolm X out of anger at his split with the leadership of the Nation of Islam, the black Muslim movement for which he had once served as a spokesman, said Hagan, then known as Talmadge X Hayer.

Over the years since the assassination, "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 ... 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.

He said he was still a Muslim but no longer a Nation of Islam member.

- AP