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<h1 class="story-title">Robert Redford renews fight to release jailed
AIM activist Leonard Peltier</h1>
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<h3 class="story-deck">Tells Sunday Edition host Michael Enright he is
pushing for a pardon from Obama</h3>
<p class="small lighttext"> <span class="spaced">By Michael Enright, <a
href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/cbc-news-online-news-staff-list-1.1294364">CBC
News</a></span> <span class="delimited">Posted: Apr 06, 2014 5:00 AM ET</span>
<span>Last Updated: Apr 06, 2014 5:18 AM ET<br>
</span></p>
<p class="small lighttext"><span><b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/robert-redford-renews-fight-to-release-jailed-aim-activist-leonard-peltier-1.2598981">http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/robert-redford-renews-fight-to-release-jailed-aim-activist-leonard-peltier-1.2598981</a></small></small></small></b><br>
</span> </p>
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<p><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em;">On June 26, 1975,
two FBI agents drove onto the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South
Dakota.</span></p>
<p>Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were looking to arrest a man named
Jimmy Eagle, who was suspected of stealing a pair of cowboy boots.</p>
<p>Pine Ridge had been a nightmare of violence, intimidation, murder
and mayhem almost on a daily basis.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="callout">
<p><strong>The Sunday Edition</strong></p>
<p>On CBC radio's The Sunday Edition on April 6 starting at 9 a.m. EDT:</p>
<p>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 <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/">The Sunday
Edition's website</a>.</p>
</div>
<p>What happened after agents Coler and Williams neared the Jumping
Bulls ranch on the reservation is a matter of long-standing dispute.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Both agents were killed. Some witnesses said that after being
mortally wounded they were executed with rifle fire to the head.</p>
<p>That November, four Indians, including an Anishinabe Dakota activist
named Leonard Peltier were indicted for the murders of Coler and
Williams.</p>
<p>Peltier managed to escape custody and fled to Canada, to Hinton,
Alta.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2>Incident at Ogalala</h2>
<p>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.<br>
</p>
<div class="figure floatright col4width">
<p class="figure-caption">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)</p>
</div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Redford's 1992 documentary, <em>Incident at Oglala</em>, 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.</p>
<p>"I felt that he did not receive a fair trial," he tells The Sunday
Edition this weekend.</p>
<p>But when Redford first visited Peltier in prison, he was initially
skeptical.</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<p>"But I came out of it very sympathetic," Redford now says.</p>
<p>Subsequent investigations over the years have shone a disturbing
light on the tactics used by the FBI in their handling of the incident.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>Documents released subsequently under freedom of information
legislation have shown that the FBI tampered with evidence, in one
instance manufacturing testimony.</p>
<p>This referred to the affidavit of a woman named Myrtle Poor Bear who
testified she saw Peltier shoot the agents.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em;">Later
investigation showed that Poor Bear had been threatened by FBI agents,
and that she had, in fact, never laid eyes on </span>Peltier<span
style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em;">.</span></p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the judges rejected Peltier's appeal.<br>
</p>
<div class="figure floatright col4width">
<p class="figure-caption">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)</p>
</div>
<p>Peltier is currently being held in the maximum security wing of the
Coleman Federal Penitentiary in Florida.</p>
<p>His health is weak. He suffers from diabetes and has had prostate
trouble. A few years ago, he was beaten badly by some inmates.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Peltier has told friends and supporters that he wants to die at
home, and Redford is optimistic.</p>
<p>However, Obama has granted fewer pardons than any other president
including the two Bushes.</p>
<p>But as Redford told The Sunday Edition: "I am very hopeful and will
raise my voice in any way."</p>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
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