[4 articles]
American Indian Movement murder trial begins
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11894923
1 December 2010
A Canadian man has gone on trial accused of murdering an American
Indian Movement activist 35 years ago in the US state of South Dakota.
During opening statements, a prosecutor said John Graham shot Annie
Mae Aquash because the activist group's leaders thought she was a
government informant.
Mr Graham's lawyers argued there was no evidence linking him to the
murder on the Pine Ridge reservation.
If convicted, the 55-year-old Southern Tutchone Indian faces life in prison.
Mr Graham, who continues to maintain his innocence, faces first- and
second-degree murder charges.
The American Indian Movement (AIM) started in the 1960s to protest
against the US government's treatment of Indian tribes.
'US government connection'
Mr Graham's lawyer, John Murphy, told jurors in the South Dakota
courtroom that prosecutors lacked a murder weapon, fingerprints or
other physical evidence connecting him to the December 1975 murder of
Ms Aquash, a 30-year-old Micmac Indian from Canada.
Ms Aquash's presence during frequent raids by the FBI on AIM premises
in the 1970s raised suspicions about her connection to the US
government. The activist never went to prison.
Her family members and others following the case have said Mr
Graham's trial could aid in answering lingering questions about why
Ms Aquash was killed and who ordered her murder.
State Attorney General Marty Jackley told jurors that investigators
believed Mr Graham shot Ms Aquash in the back of the head following a
car ride with two other AIM activists, Arlo Looking Cloud and Theda Clark.
The group was thought to be travelling to the apartment of Thelma
Rios, another former AIM member.
Looking Cloud was found guilty of his involvement in the murder in
2004 and may testify at Mr Graham's trial along with Rios, who
pleaded guilty last month in connection with Ms Aquash's death.
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Man testifies at SD trial he saw AIM activist shot
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/06/AR2010120604068.html
By NOMAAN MERCHANT
The Associated Press
Monday, December 6, 2010; 11:42 PM
RAPID CITY, S.D. -- A man who is serving a life sentence for his role
in the 1975 death of an American Indian Movement activist testified
Monday that he stood nearby and watched another man shoot her.
Arlo Looking Cloud testified against John Graham, saying he watched
as Graham shot Annie Mae Aquash on South Dakota's Pine Ridge
reservation and left her to die. Prosecutors believe Graham, Looking
Cloud and a third AIM activist, Theda Clark, kidnapped and killed
Aquash because AIM leaders thought she was a government spy. Aquash's
death has long been synonymous with AIM and its often-violent
struggles with federal agents during the 1970s.
Clark also appeared in court but told a judge she would exercise her
Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself. Clark has never
been charged in Aquash's death.
Looking Cloud, who was convicted of murder in 2004, testified that
he, Graham and Clark kidnapped Aquash from Denver and took her to
Rapid City. He said he heard Graham and Aquash having sex in the
bedroom of a Rapid City apartment. Prosecutors have alleged that
Graham raped Aquash.
Looking Cloud said the four then drove toward Pine Ridge. He said the
group eventually stopped on a dark highway in the reservation, where
Graham took Aquash out of Clark's Ford Pinto.
"I sat in the car and Theda told me, 'Go with him,'" Looking Cloud
said as jurors watched and took notes. "I proceeded to follow him."
When prosecutor Rod Oswald asked what happened next, Looking Cloud
replied: "I (see) him standing with Anna Mae, and then I see him
shooting her."
Graham's attorney, John Murphy, raised questions about Looking
Cloud's criminal background and motivation for testifying. Murphy
suggested he had embellished his story to get his life sentence reduced.
Murphy said Looking Cloud had previously described Graham and Aquash
as friends and said the sex allegation was "something you started
talking about in 2008."
He said Looking Cloud did not include several details about the
murder weapon and where the four stopped on Pine Ridge until a few
years ago. "It hadn't become part of the storyline," Murphy said.
Looking Cloud agreed that he had left out details before, but
repeatedly said he was trying to tell the truth now.
Murphy was expected to continue questioning Looking Cloud Tuesday morning.
Also Monday, South Dakota Judge John Delaney determined that Clark
was competent to testify, but Clark told lead prosecutor Marty
Jackley she would not take the stand, even if she was offered immunity.
Under questioning from Delaney before the judge issued his ruling,
Clark suggested she had once taken part in AIM. She said she is now
in her 80s and living in a Nebraska nursing home.
Another witness testified Monday that she and Aquash heard AIM
activist Leonard Peltier admit to killing two FBI agents in June
1975. Peltier was convicted in 1977 of shooting the agents and is
serving a life sentence. He has maintained his innocence, saying the
FBI framed him. The agency denies that claim.
Darlene "Kamook" Ecoffey told jurors Peltier talked about the
shooting in the fall of 1975, a few months before Aquash disappeared.
"He held his hand like this," Ecoffey said, making a gesture
resembling a gun with her hand. "And he said, 'That (expletive) was
begging for his life, but I shot him anyway.'"
Delaney originally ruled Ecoffey couldn't testify about Peltier's
comment because it was hearsay, but he reversed his decision Monday morning.
Also testifying Monday was Richard Marshall, who was found not guilty
in April of supplying the .32-caliber pistol used to kill Aquash.
Marshall said he didn't give Graham a gun, as prosecutors once
alleged, or keep weapons in his house. He denied having a private
conversation with Clark, Graham and Looking Cloud in a bedroom of his
home, despite what his former wife, Cleo Gates, testified Friday.
"It's been so long ago," Marshall said.
Marshall did not testify at his own trial and did not want to testify
at Graham's, even though prosecutors offered him full immunity.
Delaney said Marshall couldn't invoke his Fifth Amendment right
against self-incrimination if immunity was offered.
Aquash, a member of the Mi'kmaq tribe of Nova Scotia, was 30 when she
died. Her death came about two years after she participated in AIM's
71-day occupation of the South Dakota reservation town of Wounded Knee.
Graham, a 55-year-old Southern Tutchone Indian from Canada, faces
first- and second-degree murder charges and could receive life in
prison if convicted.
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At 68, he's ready to close case he broke wide open
http://www.startribune.com/local/111087789.html
by John Tevlin
Nov 30, 2010
Some time this week, there's a good chance that Garry Peterson, the
retired Hennepin County medical examiner, will go to South Dakota to
complete a case that has bookended his career, confounded law
enforcement, divided a social movement that began in Minnesota and
symbolized a political era.
Peterson ran the examiner's office from 1984 to 2004, but worked
there as an assistant since 1973. It was in 1976 that one of the most
mystifying and politically loaded cases dropped in his lap.
Anna Mae Pictou Aquash was an Indian activist who took part in the
occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. She moved to Minnesota in 1974
and worked for the Red School House in St. Paul, and later at the
headquarters of the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis.
She became an outspoken advocate of Indian rights and a close
associate of AIM leaders such as Dennis Banks, Leonard Peltier and
Vernon and Clyde Bellecourt. She participated in other occupations,
and in 1975 was indicted for possessing illegal firearms and
explosives. Then she disappeared.
On Feb. 24, 1976, a body was found in a ravine at the Pine Ridge
Reservation. A local medical examiner quickly attributed the death to
natural causes. Her hands were removed and sent to the FBI in
Washington, D.C., where they were identified as Aquash's. She was 30.
A few days later, well-known Minnesota civil rights attorney Ken
Tilsen got a call. The Aquash family suspected foul play and wanted
an investigation. Others were also demanding answers.
"I contacted Dr. Peterson at Hennepin County, and he went to South
Dakota at my request," said Tilsen, now retired and living in Hudson.
"We moved very quickly. She died of a bullet wound in the back of the
head, and it was very visible."
Tilsen recalls the reports of shoddy work from the original examiner.
"His autopsy indicated the weight of her organs, but he had never
opened her up. [To him] it was just another dead Indian found in the
hills," Tilsen said.
Tilsen still believes the FBI knew the body was Aquash from the start
because the agent in charge of finding her showed up at the autopsy.
Because Peterson will likely testify in the coming days, he declined
to speak about the case in depth.
"It was clearly one of the bigger ones of my career," said Peterson,
68, who gained a national reputation for his work. "I was a very
young man then, and I'm an old man now. This will probably be the
last time I have to testify in a case."
Two people have been convicted of participating in the murder. A
third was acquitted. The trial that started in Rapid City, S.D., on
Monday is against John Graham, the alleged shooter, who held out in
Canada until being extradited in 2006. He has denied involvement, but
the others are expected to testify against him.
Did Peterson ever expect to see an end to his first big case?
"I didn't know," he said. "I heard rumors from time to time, but I
didn't know if it would be solved."
One rumor suggested that movement leaders had her killed because she
knew too much, or was an FBI informant, something the feds have
denied. Some Indians wondered if the FBI was behind it. The murder
pitted factions of the movement against each other, and signaled the
end of its radical rise.
"It's like an Agatha Christie novel," Peterson told this newspaper
more than a decade ago. "It's one of the most interesting cases I've
worked on -- a historic case."
A historic case that may finally be closed because a young examiner
did his job when others wouldn't, followed the evidence, and found
the bullet hole.
--
[email protected] • 612-673-1702
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Witness says slain AIM activist heard 'incriminating' statement in other crime
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/world/breakingnews/witness-says-slain-aim-activist-heard-incriminating-statement-in-other-crime-111302279.html
By: Nomaan Merchant
Posted: 3/12/2010
RAPID CITY, S.D. - A witness testified Friday that an American Indian
Movement activist later convicted of killing two FBI agents made an
"incriminating" statement in front of her and another group member
who was later shot and killed.
Darlene "Kamook" Ecoffey was testifying at the trial of John Graham,
who has pleaded not guilty to charges of first- and second-degree
murder in the 1975 slaying of a fellow AIM member, Annie Mae Aquash,
near South Dakota's Pine Ridge reservation. Graham, a 55-year-old
Southern Tutchone Indian from Canada, could be sentenced to life in
prison if convicted.
Ecoffey, the former common-law wife of AIM leader Dennis Banks, was
forbidden by Circuit Court Judge John Delaney from telling jurors
exactly what she alleges group member Leonard Peltier told her Aquash
six months before Aquash was killed. The judge deemed it hearsay.
But under questioning from prosecutors, she was allowed to say that
Peltier made an "incriminating" statement.
At the 2004 trial of Arlo Looking Cloud, an alleged co-conspirator
who was convicted of taking part in Aquash's slaying, Ecoffey
testified that Peltier told her and Aquash that he killed two FBI
agents during a June 1975 shootout at a Pine Ridge ranch.
"He said the (expletive) was begging for his life, but I shot him
anyway," Ecoffey testified then.
Peltier was convicted of shooting the agents in 1977 and is serving a
life sentence.
Ecoffey also wasn't allowed to tell jurors Friday about an alleged
incident at a national AIM convention a few weeks before the shootout
with the FBI agents. In 2004, Ecoffey testified that she was told
Peltier held a gun to Aquash's head and asked her if she was a
government informant.
On Friday, Ecoffey only said Aquash appeared nervous and upset in
discussing what happened at the convention.
Prosecutors allege that Graham, Looking Cloud and Theda Clark killed
Aquash because AIM leaders believed she was a government spy, which
authorities have denied. Aquash's killing has become synonymous with
AIM and its violent clashes with federal agents during the 1970s.
Graham's attorney, John Murphy, will question Ecoffey on Monday.
Also testifying Friday was Cleo Gates, the ex-wife of Richard
Marshall, a man once accused of providing the .32-calibre pistol used
to kill Aquash. Marshall was found not guilty earlier this year and
is expected to testify Monday.
Gates said Aquash sat inside their Pine Ridge home in late 1975 while
Graham, Looking Cloud, Clark and Marshall met inside a bedroom, where
prosecutors allege Marshall passed along a gun.
Gates testified that she didn't see a gun and didn't believe Marshall
kept any weapons inside the house.
Candy Hamilton, a legal defence worker at the time of the incident,
testified that she heard AIM supporters talking to Aquash inside a
Rapid City building, before prosecutors believe she was taken toward
Pine Ridge. But Hamilton dismissed rumours of Peltier threatening
Aquash as "gossip," and when prosecutor Rod Oswald asked her if she
thought an FBI agent could have killed Aquash, she replied the agent
"didn't pull the trigger, but I think he could make it happen."
Aquash, a member of the Mi'kmaq tribe of Nova Scotia, was 30 when she
died. Her death came about two years after she participated in AIM's
71-day occupation of the South Dakota reservation town of Wounded Knee.
AIM was founded in the late 1960s to protest the U.S. government's
treatment of Indians and demand the government honour its treaties
with Indian tribes. It gained national attention in 1972 when it took
over the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, but has
since faded from public view.
Graham was first indicted in 2003, and extradited to South Dakota
four years later to face federal murder charges. But after federal
courts ruled that U.S. prosecutors didn't have authority to prosecute
Graham, he was indicted in state court.
.
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