VENGEANCE?

TIME Atlanta bureau chief Sylvester Monroe, who has reported extensively on Farrakhan, says that while the development is "incredible," the alleged plot's motive is obvious. Last summer, Malcolm's widow, Betty Shabazz, said publicly what she has always believed: that Farrakhan, a high lieutenant in the group at the time, was directly responsible for her husband's assassination. (Farrakhan has denied this, but admitted that members of the Nation of Islam - who were convicted of the murder -- might have taken his inflammatory rhetoric against Malcolm literally.) "That wound is still very much open," Monroe says. "And it's not surprising that one of Malcolm's children would be involved."