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.