[News] Native American prisoner to fight on

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Native American prisoner to fight on

Saturday, 24 April, 2004


by Chris Summers
BBC News Online
Native American activist Leonard Peltier has spent 28 years in prison for a 
crime he says he did not commit - the cold-blooded murder of two FBI agents 
on an Indian reservation in the summer of 1975. On Friday, as another 
activist was jailed for life for a murder on the same reservation, BBC News 
Online spoke to Peltier's lawyer Barry Bachrach.

A ticker on the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee website counts the days, 
hours, minutes and seconds that he has served in prison.

It currently stands at 10,305 days.

Peltier was convicted of the murder, on 26 June 1975, of FBI agents Jack 
Coler and Ron Williams.

The pair had been involved in a firefight with members of the American 
Indian Movement (Aim) on a property, known as the Jumping Bull site, on the 
Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.

Both were finished off, at close range, by their killers.

Peltier has always admitted he was on the Jumping Bull site on that day but 
he claims he escaped, along with other Aim activists, before the agents 
were killed.

'He knows who did it'

This was not a trial about Arlo Looking Cloud. They couldn't care less 
about Arlo. It was about putting to rest the Aim and getting some more 
shots in at Leonard. They want to make sure he never gets out
Barry Bachrach
Leonard Peltier's lawyer
His lawyer, Barry Bachrach, told BBC News Online: "He knows, through 
rumours, who did it but he will not reveal it."

Mr Bachrach is currently preparing an appeal, challenging the Parole 
Commission's right to set Peltier's parole date, bearing in mind its record 
of "arbitrary and capricious" decisions.

On Friday a former AIM activist, Arlo Looking Cloud, was jailed for life 
for the murder of a colleague, Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, whose body was found 
on the Pine Ridge reservation in February 1976. The trial heard she was 
killed because she was suspected of being an FBI informant.

Pine Ridge is home to the Oglala Sioux tribe, whose famous ancestor was the 
warrior Crazy Horse.

Mr Bachrach said: "Arlo's trial was a farce. It was a set-up. This was not 
a trial about Arlo Looking Cloud. They couldn't care less about Arlo. It 
was about putting to rest the AIM and getting some more shots in at 
Leonard. They want to make sure he never gets out."

He said: "What is important to bear in mind is that this (Pine Ridge) was a 
war zone. At the time - between 1973 and 1976 - it was known as the "reign 
of terror".

'Terrorising people'

"During this time Dick Wilson (the former tribal chief, now deceased) hired 
a group known as the Guardians Of the Oglala Nation (Goon), and they were 
terrorising people.

"Wilson was leasing and hiring land, rich with uranium deposits, to energy 
companies.

"The US Government and the FBI were supporting Dick Wilson and his Goons, 
who committed more than 60 murders which were uninvestigated."

Mr Bachrach said: "The only one of these 60 murders which anybody has 
bothered to reinvestigate was Anna Mae's."

Arlo Looking Cloud's trial heard evidence from Darlene "Kamook" Nichols, 
the former wife of one-time Aim leader Dennis Banks.

She claimed Anna Mae was challenged about being an FBI informant at a 
convention in New Mexico in June 1975.

Ms Nichols testified that Peltier threatened Anna Mae with a gun and added: 
"She told him that if he believed that he should go ahead and shoot her."

Mr Bachrach said he visited Peltier last week at Leavenworth penitentiary 
in Kansas: "I asked Leonard about what Kamook said. He said he was asked to 
inquire of Anna Mae if she was working for the FBI and he took her into a 
teepee in Farmington, New Mexico to talk to her. But it's false to say he 
struck a gun in her mouth."

Ms Nichols also told the trial that Anna Mae had said Peltier later bragged 
about killing the two FBI agents.

Mr Bachrach said: "This case was nothing more than smearsay. They coached 
Kamook and she admitted she had been paid $40,000 by the FBI. Her evidence 
should never have seen the light of day."

'Betrayed'

He said: "Leonard feels very betrayed by Kamook. It's very hurtful for 
someone you think is a friend to lie about you."

He added: "Why would he brag about killing the agents if he suspected she 
was an informant?"

Peltier is one of the best-known alleged miscarriages of justice victims in 
the United States.

In the past he has received messages of support from Nelson Mandela, the 
Dalai Lama, British MP Tony Benn and numerous actors, including Robert 
Redford and Winona Ryder.

Mr Bachrach said: "We are not going to go away. This is an injustice and a 
government cover-up and we are just not going to go away until Leonard is 
released and even when he is released we will not go away."

He recently wrote to the US Congress asking them to widen an investigation 
into FBI misconduct in Boston, Massachusetts (involving mafia boss James 
"Whitey" Bulger) to include alleged misconduct among FBI agents in South 
Dakota in the 1970s.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/3654785.stm

Published: 2004/04/24 04:49:11 GMT


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