And now:"S.I.S.I.S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
NOTE: Please send all inquiries/comments about this post to the original
sender, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, *not* S.I.S.I.S.
----------Forwarded message---------
From: "LPDC Canada" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Full disclosure of truth in Canadian Peltier case
Date: Thu, 20 May 1999 09:42:41 -0400
PLEASE POST ON YOUR NETWORKS --
scanned photos are available upon request for print publication
Thanks, LPDC Canada
******
For Immediate releaseŠ. May 14, 1999
LEONARD PELTIER DEFENSE COMMITTEE
CANADA
McLellan's remarks hint at human rights setback
Full and complete disclosure of the truth of the
past 23 years In the Canadian Peltier case is called for
"Nothing less than the truth with full and complete disclosure of all
evidence withheld for the past twenty three years pertaining to the Leonard
Peltier case in Canada will be accepted," stated Frank Dreaver of the LPDC.
"Are we to believe that after all these years of world attention with many
independent examinations of the hard won evidence by human rights,
government and legal experts, that the Canadian minister of justice would
now dismiss this as completely irrelevant?"
Recent remarks made by justice minister Anne McLellan suggesting there is
no evidence of fraud in Leonard Peltier's extradition in 1976 were met with
reactions of outrage and disbelief. Her remarks to the press on May 5th
concluded there is no evidence any one lied in the extradition hearings and
that the extradition was justified on the basis of other evidence aside
from key affidavits which the minister did not point out have long since
been discredited.
Not surprisingly, McLellan also stated she has just received permission
from the United States government to release the findings of her
department's own review authorized by her predecessor Allan Rock following
years of public appeals including the intervention by 55 MPs in Peltier's
U.S. court proceedings and the urgent recommendation of the Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. The minister further stated she would
release the results of the internal review within upcoming weeks.
Her announcement was made on the same day a historic vote took place at
Canada's largest labour convention amongst two thousand delegates of the
Canadian Labour Congress, representing 2.5 million unionized workers. They
unanimously ratified an emergency resolution committing themselves to
exerting political pressure for the Canadian government to seek ways to
rectify the injustice including filing its official recommendation for
Peltier's unconditional release.
"The fact that Canada has been given permission by the United States to
close the review is in itself an outrage," said Frank Dreaver, LPDC
Canada's founder and international spokesperson. "This suggests what we
have always known, that the American government is controlling the
procedure, timing and outcome of this issue within the jurisdiction of
another country," he continued. "It is exactly the kind of international
intrusion of Canada's affairs and sovereignty that continues to outrage
Canadian peoples. From the beginning we have always demanded that any
review should be conducted independently of the justice department to
ensure a fair evaluation," said Dreaver.
-2-
The minister's comments causes grave concern that the Canadian government
will not allow a proper assessment of all evidence that proves the
deliberate fraud of the extradition treaty and that all evidence not just
the coerced Myrtle Poor Bear affidavits but the other evidence the minister
is referring to could never have amounted to legitimate grounds for
extradition.
The day after her announcement, MP Jack Ramsey, the Reform Party's justice
critic questioned McLellan in Parliament as to what other evidence the
justice department relied upon in Peltier's extradition. "I cannot tell the
House the nature of that additional evidence," McLellan responded. "The
contents of that entire review will be released by me within coming weeks.
At that time everybody will be able to see the basis on which Mr. Peltier
was extradited from Canada."
If this is the case then disclosure of Warren Allmand's report is extremely
critical as a key release of all contents of the review, said Dreaver, who
explained that Allmand studied the files and submitted recommendations in
his report to former justice minister Rock at Mr. Rock's request. Rock was
to have concluded the review with Allmand's recommendations in hand prior
to the federal election in June 1997. Mr. Allmand, a former Liberal Member
of Parliament and Solicitor General of Canada during Peltier's extradition
stated that once the Poor Bear affidavits were found fraudulent; there were
absolutely no grounds for extradition.
All evidence falsified or insufficient
The minister's remarks are "very troubling," responded Osgoode Hall law
professor Dianne Martin, lead counsel on LPDC Canada's team who compiled
all critical documentation from Canada-U.S. FOIA (Freedom of Information
Act) provisions which the committee donated in January to law libraries
across Canada. The document is today a permanent record with the U.N. human
rights commission forming the basis of an intervention with resolutions
submitted by Dreaver at U.N. hearings in 1995.
"It is as if the review by Warren Allmand and the overwhelming
evidence of significant irregularities in the extradition did not exist,
"said Prof. Martin. "An honest and objective review of this record reveals
those irregularities. Equally ridiculous is the claim that the extradition
was not based on the admittedly false Poor Bear affidavits. They were the
case for extradition and they were false. In view of the serious
irregularities in the subsequent trial," she continued, "Canada cannot say
that our hands are clean in this terrible wrongful conviction. We permitted
an innocent man to be extradited and then wrongly convicted and we are
apparently unwilling to admit this simple but dreadful truth. I am ashamed
and disappointed by this response."
McLellan's remark that the other evidence supports Peltier's return to the
United States is contradicted by the advice of Canada's own justice
department attorney 24 years ago. Paul William Halprin, who represented the
U.S. government during the extradition hearings, quickly considered the
other evidence as totally inadequate. He had advised U.S. justice officials
and the F.B.I. shortly after Peltier's arrest that there was not enough
evidence to allow extradition for the reservation murders and asked for
more. Weeks later according to F.B.I. teletypes, Halprin visited the
bureau's offices in South Dakota and assisted the F.B.I. in their making of
the Poor Bear affidavits.
-3-
The other evidence McLellan could only be referring to; and considered to
have been not good enough by Halprin, simply places Peltier along with
dozens of peoples at the scene of the shootout. He was seen hours after the
shooting began with a gun along with many others who had been firing in
self-defense and that his fingerprint was found on the outside of a paper
bag allegedly containing one of the agents' handguns five months after the
shooting. This IS hardly ground for proving he committed the deliberate and
intentional murder of the F.B.I. agents.
The two affidavits that were eventually produced stating that Peltier
murdered the two agents had been coerced from Myrtle Poor Bear, an alleged
eyewitness. She recanted the affidavits shortly after they were produced to
the extradition court. Prosecutors also admitted that poor bear had not
even been on the pine ridge reservation and did not know Peltier.
On June 18, 1976 Justice Schultz, the Canadian extradition judge
ordered the extradition on the basis of the Poor Bear affidavits. But he
was not aware of a third conflicting affidavit which surfaced in the trial
of Peltier's two co-defendants in July 1976 and who were acquitted of the
murder charges on grounds of self-defense. This affidavit stated Poor Bear
was not present on Pine Ridge reservation on the day of the shootout and
therefore could not have witnessed any of the events. With evidence of
falsified and corrupted testimony, Peltier's attorneys appealed the
extradition TO Canada's Federal Court of Appeal in October 1976, which
then, without written reasons, refused to consider the third affidavit and
ordered Peltier extradited.
Political Asylum in Canada
A request for political asylum for Peltier in Canada was made to Ron
Basford, Justice Minister under the Liberal government of the time since
under sec. 22 of the Extradition Act the minister could stop Peltier's
extradition if he believed the offences were politically motivated.
However, Basford chose not to consider the new evidence suggesting bad
faith on the part of the U.S. and was therefore able to bypass having to
assess the political persecution behind the fraudulent charges. (Canada's
Prime Minister Jean Chretien was finance minister at the time.)
On Dec. 17, 1976 Basford officially responded that the Poor Bear
affidavits was a "legal matter for the courts which have dealt with it in
Canada and will undoubtedly do so in the U.S." However, in making his
official response, he must have known several weeks earlier the appeals
court had refused to deal with the new evidence. Since then no court, both
in Canada and the U.S. has ever ruled on the matter of the falsified
affidavits, although two unprecedented legal actions were still made from
Canada many years later.
In 1989, Canadian attorneys filed a leave to appeal the extradition on the
ground of deliberate fraud with the Supreme Court of Canada. Lawyers for
Canada's department of justice, once again representing the U.S.
government, could not and did not deny the existence of fraud and even
admitted to it during oral argument. But the courts once again without
releasing any written judgement recommended any remedy would have to be
taken up with the Canadian government.
-4-
Then in 1992 with political pressure building, 55 parliamentarians
intervened in Peltier's U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals hearing
arguing the extradition fraud was part of a pattern of government
misconduct and recommended that his "tainted conviction be set aside." The
court ruled the argument should have been raised before (even though no
court would hear it and under international ruling Peltier was prevented
from raising it in trial); that it was for the Canadian government and not
individual members to argue it.
Even so, U.S. judges over the years have commented on the "improper
tactics" of the F.B.I. and "clear abuse of the investigative process" to
secure Peltier's extradition. And yet successive Ministers of Justice in
Canada up until the Supreme Court presentation ruled that this was a matter
for the courts to decide. This ultimately came to a stop with the
re-opening of the case after 18 years under the Canadian ministerial
review. Over the years, world reaction has appealed for the Canadian
government and each of its Ministers of Justice to examine fairly all
evidence that the court of appeal or the justice minister of the time
refused to consider. The extradition proceedings could have ended there.
But it didn't and Canada should exercise what the courts could not, that it
has a continuing obligation to seek ways to remedy this initial failure. In
so doing, it would uphold a standard of trust and integrity between
countries under the extradition treaty as well as under Canada's Bill of
Rights (since 1982, Charter of Rights and Freedoms). It would have also
determined some responsibility for denying Peltier his fundamental right to
due process, not only in Canada but also in the United States.
In closing, we look forward to a full airing out of all facts and
circumstances of Leonard Peltier's extradition and encourage all people to
write to Anne McLellan for her good faith, integrity and courage to
disclose all contents of the review. Remind her of Canada's international
responsibility in ensuring a fair assessment of the extradition which is
being monitored worldwide by international human rights and judicial
bodies, the European Parliament and millions of peoples from around the
world. We also want to remind the minister of her obligation to releasing
to the peoples of Canada, the United States and worldwide the damning
evidence of fraud accumulated over the years.
Canadians were informed by American authorities that Peltier would receive
a fair trial, when in fact evidence including the U.S. government's own
admissions proves he did not. He was extradited for the first-degree murder
of two F.B.I. agents; convicted of the charges and sentenced to two
consecutive life sentences in a trial where evidence vindicating his
co-defendants was suddenly denied to him. Both judge and state were
deliberately made hostile in order to gain a conviction. The final insult,
the coerced testimony of Poor Bear in itself was ruled inadmissible in
court because the F.B.I. deemed her testimony "unreliable" because of
mental instability; the very same coerced testimony used to extradite
Peltier. Years later with the release of FOIA evidence, U.S. prosecutors
were forced to admit they don't know who shot the agents and have no direct
evidence linking Peltier to the agents' deaths. Today, U.S. officials
continue to justify his imprisonment on grounds of "aiding and abetting"
even though he has never been charged or convicted of the lesser charge;
nor have any of the 40 other individuals, men, women and even children who
were present at the scene of the shootout.
-5-
Very simply, Canada's justice department and its minister have a duty to
prove that the extradition request for Peltier was made in good faith and
was not politically motivated. The false Poor Bear affidavits were only the
beginning of evidence of Peltier's frame-up. The "pattern of outrageous
government misconduct" continued in his subsequent trial, three U.S. court
appeals, including America's Supreme Court, to Canada's Supreme Court;
finally resulting in an appeal for executive clemency to the President of
the United States and an official review of the extradition with the
Government of Canada.
The Canadian government has a responsibility to end this country's
complicity that has contributed to Peltier's false imprisonment for over 23
years. This would include filing a request with American authorities for
his unconditional release and recommendation to President Clinton to grant
clemency or a new and fair trial.
___________________________________________________________________________
Please send your letters to Anne McLellan, Justice Minister of Canada,
House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1A OA6. Fax: (613) 943-0044 or
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Send copies to The Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, Minister of Foreign Affairs and
International Trade, (same address). Fax: (613) 947-4442 or email:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more information, contact Frank & Anne Dreaver of the LPDC Canada
at (416) 439-1893 or email at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
S.I.S.I.S. Settlers In Support of Indigenous Sovereignty
P.O. Box 8673, Victoria, "B.C." "Canada" V8X 3S2
EMAIL : <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
WWW: http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/SISmain.html
SOVERNET-L is a news-only listserv concerned with indigenous
sovereigntist struggles around the world. To subscribe, send
"subscribe sovernet-l" in the body of an email message to
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
For more information on sovernet-l, contact S.I.S.I.S.
:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:
