WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, Manhattan — The family of Malcolm X has filed a $100 million lawsuit against the government and law enforcement agencies, including the New York City Police Department, for the murder of their father.

The lawsuit alleges that the FBI, CIA and NYPD conspired in the activist’s 1965 murder, engaging in a decades-long cover-up that has disrupted the family’s search for truth and justice.

Ilyasah Shabazz, Malcolm X’s daughter, who represented her family at a press conference in New York City, and her lawyers say they have uncovered new evidence they believe will prove the NYPD and FBI conspired to kill Malcolm X.

“We fought primarily for our mother, who was here,” Ilyasah Shabazz said of Betty Shabazz, who died in 1997, from the site of the former Audubon Ballroom, where her father was killed. “My mother was pregnant when she came here to see her husband speak; someone she just totally admired and to witness this horrific murder of her husband…”

Malcolm X was shot 21 times by multiple gunmen on February 21, 1965 during a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights – in front of his wife and daughters. He was 39 years old.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the family, said the lawsuit alleges that authorities engaged in the decades-long cover-up that deprived Malcolm X and his family of justice.

“It is not lost on us that justice has been delayed in this matter,” Crump said. “The government’s fingerprints are all over the assassination of Malcom X and finally we believe we have the evidence to prove it.”

In the years since, questions have escalated about the role of law enforcement in Malcolm X’s death.

“Over the last three years, every day, every week, every month, we’ve found new evidence,” Crump said.

In the lawsuit, the family said the prosecution team suppressed the government’s role in the murder.

The suit alleges that there was a “corrupt, illegal and unconstitutional” relationship between law enforcement and “reckless killers that went unchecked for many years and were actively concealed, condoned, protected and facilitated by government agents,” leading up to the murder. by Malcolm X.

According to the lawsuit, the NYPD, in coordination with federal law enforcement, arrested the activist’s security detail days before the assassination and intentionally removed their officers from the ballroom where Malcolm X was killed. Meanwhile, it adds, federal authorities had personnel, including secret agents, in the ballroom but failed to protect him.

Three men were convicted of crimes in the death, but two of them were acquitted in 2021 after investigators took another look at the case and concluded that some evidence was shaky and authorities had withheld some information.

The family hopes the new legal action will lead them to the truth.

“We’re going to turn over every stone, we’re going to open up every drawer, we’re going to look at every file to get the truth about what happened to Malcolm X,” said attorney Jonathan Moore.

Law enforcement has not yet responded due to the ongoing lawsuit.

(The Associated Press and ABC News contributed to this report.)