[News] FBI releases nearly 800 pages in Leonard Peltier case

[News at freedomarchives.org]

FBI releases nearly 800 pages in Leonard Peltier case


By CAROLYN THOMPSON
Associated Press Writer

April 5, 2004, 6:30 PM EDT

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The FBI has released nearly 800 pages of material sought 
by attorneys for Leonard Peltier, an American Indian activist serving two 
life sentences in the 1975 slayings of two FBI agents in South Dakota.

Responding to a Freedom of Information Act request, the FBI turned over 797 
of the 812 pages collected by the Buffalo field office in the Peltier case. 
The FBI withheld 15 pages, citing exemptions allowed under the act for 
national security concerns and to protect the privacy of agents, according 
to court documents.

Peltier's attorneys said Monday they would fight for the release of the 
withheld material.

"We're going to argue that the exemptions are being improperly invoked," 
said Buffalo attorney Michael Kuzma, who works with the Peltier defense 
team led by Bruce Ellison and Barry Bachrach.

Peltier supporters are seeking tens of thousands of pages from FBI 
documents from field offices nationwide as they fight to have his 
conviction overturned.

"I believe the sheer volume of material that wasn't released or turned over 
to Leonard's defense attorneys warrants Leonard's immediate release from 
prison," Kuzma said. "Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way."

The Buffalo documents outline agents' work as they checked with informants, 
including sources within the Seneca Indian Nation, and followed up on 
suspected Peltier sightings before his arrest, Kuzma said.

A Nov. 14, 1975, memo outlines an unidentified source's claim that he saw 
Peltier at an Indian convention at a Buffalo hotel in October 1975, four 
months after the shooting. Another source believed he spotted Peltier in 
Steamburg, near the Senecas' Allegany reservation, teaching Indian dances 
to women, Kuzma said.

Paul Moskal, an FBI spokesman in Buffalo, said he was unfamiliar with the 
content of the documents, released through the agency's Washington 
headquarters March 16, and could not comment.

Peltier was convicted of killing agents Ronald Williams and Jack Coler 
during a standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Supporters have long campaigned to free Peltier, 59, claiming he was 
unfairly targeted because of his political activism. He has been the 
subject of several documentary films and the best-selling novel "In the 
Spirit of Crazy Horse" by Peter Matthiessen.

President Clinton denied Peltier clemency in 2000, a decision supporters 
blamed on a protest by 500 FBI agents and their families outside the White 
House. Opponents of Peltier's release point to the repeated rejections of 
his appeals and claim he has changed his story through the years.

Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
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