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(Federal Case) In Feb. 1973, 200 American Indian
Movement (AIM) activists launched a 72-day occupation of Wounded Knee, SD
(Site of an 1890 American Indian massacre) to protest living conditions at
the Pine Ridge reservation. During the next three years, the FBI carried
out intensive local surveillance, as well as the repeated arrests,
harassment, and bad-faith legal proceedings against AIM leaders and
supporters. In 1975, two FBI agents entered the reservation and with
tensions being high managed to provoke a firefight between themselves and
local Indians. Both FBI agents as well as Indians were killed. To avenge
the death of the two agents, the government issued arrest warrants against
four men, including Leonard Peltier. It dropped charges against one and
tried two, but during the trial a key prosecution witness admitted that he
had been threatened by the FBI and as a result had changed his testimony
upon the agents' instructions, so as to support the government's position.
The two defendants were acquitted.
Peltier was in
Canada and to get him extradited the government submitted an affidavit from
a mentally unstable woman who claimed to have been Peltier's girlfriend, and
to have been present during the shootout, and to have witnessed the
murders. In fact, she did not know Peltier, nor was she present at the time
of the shooting. She later confessed she had given the false statement
after being pressured and terrorized by FBI agents. At Peltier's trial, the
government withheld thousands of documents. It presented coerced witnesses;
though none placed Peltier at the murder scene before the murders occurred
or claimed Peltier shot the two agents. Peltier was convicted and sentenced
to two life sentences.
Peltier's case is detailed in In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, a 1983
bestseller, and in Incident at Oglala, a documentary produced by
Robert Redford. (www.leonardpeltier.net) (AJ) (Famous
Trials)
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