[Pnews] Robert Redford renews fight to release jailed AIM activist Leonard Peltier

[Prisoner News]

  Robert Redford renews fight to release jailed AIM activist Leonard Peltier


      Tells Sunday Edition host Michael Enright he is pushing for a
      pardon from Obama

By Michael Enright, CBC News 
<http://www.cbc.ca/news/cbc-news-online-news-staff-list-1.1294364> 
Posted: Apr 06, 2014 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Apr 06, 2014 5:18 AM ET

*http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/robert-redford-renews-fight-to-release-jailed-aim-activist-leonard-peltier-1.2598981*

On June 26, 1975, two FBI agents drove onto the Pine Ridge Indian 
Reservation in South Dakota.

Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were looking to arrest a man named Jimmy 
Eagle, who was suspected of stealing a pair of cowboy boots.

Pine Ridge had been a nightmare of violence, intimidation, murder and 
mayhem almost on a daily basis.

There had been more than 60 killings in just a couple of years in 
confrontations between members of the activist American Indian Movement, 
and groups of thugs who controlled life on the reservation.

*The Sunday Edition*

On CBC radio's The Sunday Edition on April 6 starting at 9 a.m. EDT:

Michael Enright's full interview with Robert Redford, and an interview 
with Leonard Peltier's lawyer, Michael Kuzma, can be heard on The Sunday 
Edition, at 9:15 a.m. Both interviews are also available in full on The 
Sunday Edition's website <http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/>.

What happened after agents Coler and Williams neared the Jumping Bulls 
ranch on the reservation is a matter of long-standing dispute.

Gunfire broke out. Coler and Williams took cover behind their car, but 
their small-calibre service revolvers were no match for the high-powered 
rifles raining down fire from a small mesa above their vehicle.

Both agents were killed. Some witnesses said that after being mortally 
wounded they were executed with rifle fire to the head.

That November, four Indians, including an Anishinabe Dakota activist 
named Leonard Peltier were indicted for the murders of Coler and Williams.

Peltier managed to escape custody and fled to Canada, to Hinton, Alta.

The following February he was arrested by the RCMP and transported to 
Vancouver to await the outcome of an extradition hearing. In June 1976, 
the Canadian government authorized his extradition.

That next month, the others accused of the murders were acquitted. But a 
year later, on April 18, 1977, a jury in Fargo, N.D., found Peltier 
guilty of murdering the two FBI agents. He was sentenced to two 
consecutive life sentences.


    Incident at Ogalala

There has been a decades-long dispute about whether Peltier killed the 
two FBI agents. Before he died, Bob Robideau, one of the men acquitted 
in the shooting, admitted he killed both men.

Leonard Peltier, shown here in a 1999 photo, was given two life 
sentences in a trial that has sparked controversy for decades. (Joe 
Ledford / Associated Press)

But Peltier has stayed locked up, despite pleas from such luminaries as 
the late Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, retired South African 
archbishop Desmond Tutu and the actor and director Robert Redford to 
have his sentence commuted.

Redford's 1992 documentary, /Incident at Oglala/, recounted the facts of 
the case and focused in on Peltier's trial. Now that Peltier is in poor 
health, Redford and others are renewing their efforts to draw attention 
to the case.

"I felt that he did not receive a fair trial," he tells The Sunday 
Edition this weekend.

But when Redford first visited Peltier in prison, he was initially 
skeptical.

"I was trying to be neutral in my feelings about him. I didn't want to 
be taken in by anything. I did feel that of course there would be 
desperation to a person in prison trying to get the word out.

"But I came out of it very sympathetic," Redford now says.

Subsequent investigations over the years have shone a disturbing light 
on the tactics used by the FBI in their handling of the incident.

Naturally, the bureau was incensed that two of their young agents had 
been cut down in cold blood. Redford says the FBI wanted "an eye for an 
eye."

Documents released subsequently under freedom of information legislation 
have shown that the FBI tampered with evidence, in one instance 
manufacturing testimony.

This referred to the affidavit of a woman named Myrtle Poor Bear who 
testified she saw Peltier shoot the agents.

Later investigation showed that Poor Bear had been threatened by FBI 
agents, and that she had, in fact, never laid eyes on Peltier.

At a hearing before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1978, the 
U.S. attorney at the time admitted that, "We don't really know who shot 
the agents."

Nevertheless, the judges rejected Peltier's appeal.

FBI Agents hold a banner in front of the White House during an FBI rally 
in December 2000 when it was thought then president Bill Clinton might 
pardon Leonard Peltier. (Reuters)

Peltier is currently being held in the maximum security wing of the 
Coleman Federal Penitentiary in Florida.

His health is weak. He suffers from diabetes and has had prostate 
trouble. A few years ago, he was beaten badly by some inmates.

He will be 70 next year. Redford's hope is that President Barack Obama 
will grant Peltier a pardon or commute his sentences. Redford had tried 
earlier to get then president Bill Clinton to pardon Peltier, but 
Clinton wouldn't do it.

Peltier has told friends and supporters that he wants to die at home, 
and Redford is optimistic.

However, Obama has granted fewer pardons than any other president 
including the two Bushes.

But as Redford told The Sunday Edition: "I am very hopeful and will 
raise my voice in any way."

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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