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</font><h1><b>Guilty verdict in N.S. native activist's death<br><br>
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</b></h1><h4><b>Last Updated: Friday, December 10, 2010 | 7:23 PM CST
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</a></i></b></h4><h5><b><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/credit.html">CBC
News</a> </b></h5><font size=3>A South Dakota jury has found John Graham
guilty of felony murder in the 1975 slaying of a native woman originally
from Nova Scotia.<br><br>
Graham, 55, was acquitted of a second, more serious charge of
premeditated murder in the slaying of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, a Mi'kmaq
from Indian Brook, N.S., and an activist with the American Indian
Movement (AIM). <br><br>
Felony murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison.<br><br>
The two charges roughly parallel what are known as second- and
first-degree murder charges in Canada.<br><br>
Graham looked straight ahead and didn't move as the verdicts were read.
His daughter, Naneek, began to cry as the jury members stood one by one
to affirm the verdicts.<br><br>
"We waited 35 years," said Denise Maloney Pictou, one of
Pictou-Aquash's daughters, "It's been a long road for
us."<br><br>
</font><h3><b>Violent struggles</b></h3><font size=3>Graham, originally
from Yukon, was accused of shooting Pictou-Aquash, 30, and leaving her to
die on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. The killing occurred
amid the violent struggles between AIM and agents with the Federal Bureau
of Investigation of the 1970s.<br><br>
Prosecutors in the 7th Circuit Court in Rapid City, S.D., argued that
Graham and two other AIM members kidnapped and killed Pictou-Aquash
because they thought she was a government spy.<br><br>
The charges against Graham were laid after Arlo Looking Cloud, another
AIM member who was convicted in Pictou-Aquash's murder six years ago,
alleged Graham was the one who shot her.<br><br>
The jury in the case deliberated for 12 hours from Thursday to Friday
before initially delivering a verdict on the felony murder charge but
remaining deadlocked on the other charge. They eventually returned a
verdict on the premeditated murder charge as well.<br><br>
</font><h3><b>'We need to be together'</b></h3><font size=3>A Southern
Tutchone originally from the Champagne and Asihihik First Nation in
Yukon, Graham was extradited from Vancouver to the U.S. in 2007 to stand
trial in Pictou-Aquash's death.<br><br>
Graham's children, who live in Yukon, are in Rapid City this week to
provide support to their father.<br><br>
Viola Papequash, Graham's former partner and the mother of their
children, said she is bringing family members together in Yukon so they
can be prepared for the verdict.<br><br>
"We need to be together to just support one another for whatever
happens," Papequash told CBC News on Thursday from her home in
Whitehorse.<br><br>
Both Pictou-Aquash and Graham were active in AIM, which was established
in the late 1960s to protest the U.S. government's treatment of American
Indians and demand the government honour its treaties with Indian
tribes.<br><br>
Pictou-Aquash's death came about six months after two FBI agents were
killed during a shootout with AIM members at Pine Ridge, and two years
after she participated in AIM's 71-day occupation of the South Dakota
reservation town of Wounded Knee.<br><br>
Papequash said the long legal saga leading up to Graham's trial has had
its toll on their family.<br><br>
"For John and I, as a family, it started in '89 when the FBI first
came up a long time, a long haul for all of us," she
said.<br><br>
<i>With files from The Associated Press<br>
</i>Read more:
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/12/10/graham-aquash-aim-jury.html#ixzz17ozm0aUk">
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/12/10/graham-aquash-aim-jury.html#ixzz17ozm0aUk</a>
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