Leonard Peltier, Indigenous activist in prison for 47 years over FBI killings, has parole hearing | Native Americans

Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist who has served practically 50 years in jail for the killing of two FBI brokers, was on account of have his first parole listening to since 2009 on Monday, his lawyer mentioned.

Peltier, 79, has maintained that he didn’t kill the FBI particular brokers Jack Coler and Ronald Williams in 1975 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Advocates, together with figures such because the late Nelson Mandela and a former prosecutor and choose concerned in his case, have lengthy mentioned he must be freed due to what they name authorized irregularities in his trial.

However in letter ship to the highest federal parole officer, Christopher Wray, the FBI director, referred to as Peltier a “remorseless killer” who ought to by no means be freed.

“All through the years, Peltier has by no means accepted accountability or proven regret,” Wray wrote to Patricia Cushwa, performing chair of the US Parole Fee, on 7 June. “He’s wholly unfit for parole.”

Peltier was to satisfy with a US Parole Fee federal agent contained in the Coleman federal advanced in Florida, based on Peltier’s lawyer, the previous federal choose Kevin Sharp.

The US Parole Fee didn’t return requests for remark.

Peltier, who was a member of the American Indian Motion within the Seventies, has mentioned he was amongst a gaggle of Native American males who fired on the 2 FBI brokers who arrived on the Pine Ridge reservation in June 1976, in the hunt for a fugitive. Peltier has mentioned that whereas he fired, he was not the one that killed the brokers.

Two different Native American males who fired on the brokers had been tried in 1976 and located not responsible by purpose of self-defense. Peltier fled to Canada earlier than the trial. He was ultimately extradited again to the US and tried individually in 1977, when he was discovered responsible.

Amnesty Worldwide has lengthy championed Peltier’s case. Like others, they are saying that authorities prosecutors withheld crucial proof that may have been favorable to Peltier at trial and fabricated affidavits that painted him as responsible.

Since his conviction, a former prosecutor in his trial, a federal choose concerned in an enchantment, Pope Francis, Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Coretta Scott King and a number of US senators, amongst others, have referred to as for Peltier’s launch.

Paul O’Brien, government director of Amnesty Worldwide, wrote in letter to the US Parole Fee that granting parole on humanitarian grounds “shouldn’t be solely well timed however a mandatory measure within the pursuits of each justice and mercy”.