MEXICO City ( 2 Waiters from Palace Club - Charged with Killing Malcolm X's Grandson )

Mexican Judge Orders Trial for Suspects in Killing of Malcolm X’s Grandson

MEXICO CITY – A Mexican judge has ordered the two waiters accused of killing Malcolm Shabazz, the grandson of U.S. political activist Malcolm X, to stand trial, the District Attorney’s Office said.

David Hernandez Cruz and Manuel Alejandro Perez, both 24, will be tried on homicide and robbery charges under a ruling issued Saturday by Judge Hector Palomares, the DA’s office said.

Attorneys for the two suspects, who worked as waiters at The Palace Club on the Plaza Garibaldi, will have three days to appeal the ruling.

District Attorney Rodolfo Fernando Rios said last Monday that Hernandez Cruz and Perez had been arrested for the killing.

The two suspects and two other men allegedly beat Shabazz in the early morning hours of May 9 after he refused to pay a $1,200 bar tab, the DA said.

The 29-year-old Shabazz died a few hours later at a hospital emergency room “as a result of the trauma from being beaten with a large blunt object,” Rios said.

Investigators determined that Shabazz arrived in Mexico City from Tijuana, a border city in northwestern Mexico, along with a person whose identity is not being disclosed because they are considered a victim, Rios said.

Shabazz’s companion, a Mexican, was robbed and threatened but managed to get out of the bar alive, DA’s office spokesmen said.

Malcolm’s mother, Qubilah Shabazz, was one of six daughters of Malcolm X and his wife, Betty Shabazz.

Qubilah was only 4 when she witnessed her father’s 1965 assassination in New York.

In August 1997, the then-12-year-old Malcolm Shabazz was sentenced to 18 months in juvenile detention for starting a fire that resulted in the death of grandmother Betty Shabazz.