B.C. judge allows extradition in AIM killing

Isn't Ward Churchill associated with AIM?

pong

The main AIM says he is not a member, he is not an Indian..a Colorado AIM group accepts him.

Anna Mae Aquash is one of the martyrs in the Canadian feminist pantheon, even with (or more likely, because of) her involvement in AIM terrorist activities.

Is the Pope Catholic?

He goes back to the 70s but his Denver/Boulder group and the Minneapolis group are feuding.

Yipee!

I wish you could see the wicked grin on my face.

A lot of people saw this woman tied up, abused and raped.
She was sitting around in their offices for gosh sakes.

It may all come out. There are lots of folks that let it happen.

http://www.recorder.ca/cp/National/050219/n021905A.html
Vancouver man faces extradition to U.S. for 30-year-old murder
CAMILLE BAINS

VANCOUVER (CP) - A family's anguish over a 30-year-old unsolved murder, an alleged FBI coverup and one man's fight against extradition to the United States are at the centre of a case that takes a pivotal twist Monday before a B.C. Supreme Court judge.

The U.S. wants John Graham, 49, extradited to face first-degree murder charges in the death of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a fellow activist in the American Indian Movement.

The body of Aquash, a Mi'kmaq from Nova Scotia, was discovered at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota on Feb. 24, 1976. She had been shot in the back of the head.

Graham has maintained that he had nothing to do with Aquash's murder and that he's been framed by the FBI because of his political involvement.

But Aquash's daughter, Denise Maloney Pictou, wants Graham returned to the U.S. for a trial that will hopefully answer the many questions that have haunted her family for so many years.

"The tragedy is that a Canadian native woman was murdered on American soil and we're still dealing with it . . . in 2005," Maloney Pictou said in an interview from Halifax.

Graham was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1, 2003, and has been out on bail to prepare for his extradition hearing, which wrapped up Feb. 2.

On Monday, a B.C. Supreme Court judge will decide whether Graham should be committed for extradition to stand trial for Aquash's murder. It's up to the federal justice minister to decide if Graham will be surrendered to the U.S.

The case has raised many questions, including why it took American authorities almost three decades to lay charges against Graham.

Terry LaLiberte, Graham's lawyer, said the U.S. just didn't have the evidence to extradite his client.

"They tried several times to get indictments and could not get them," LaLiberte said.

"There could be five or six grand juries that decided they didn't have enough evidence to indict and then all of a sudden, allegedly, they got new witnesses that decided to talk."

LaLiberte argued during the extradition hearing that the evidence the U.S. certified against his client was "full of holes."

One alleged witness was dead for nine months when he was said to be available to testify and another man denied making the statements attributed to him, LaLiberte told B.C. Supreme Court.

But Maloney Pictou said it took so long to charge Graham because witnesses were reluctant to accuse their own people and wouldn't turn to the authorities they'd historically fought against for their native rights.

"When you're dealing with individuals who've spent all of their lives protesting the government and protesting authoritative representation, who are they going to go to?"

Aquash had contacted her family in Nova Scotia to say she was troubled about the impoverished conditions at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation while government funds were being used to buy drugs, alcohol and guns, Maloney Pictou said.

Aquash felt threatened and feared for her life because she voiced her opinion about what was going on, she added.

The FBI has implied that AIM members executed Aquash, who was 29 at the time, because they believed she was an informant for them.

Days before he would learn his fate, Graham said in an interview he's afraid he may suffer the same injustice as fellow activist Leonard Peltier, who was extradited to the U.S. in 1976.

Peltier fled to Canada after the FBI accused him of killing two of its agents at a shootout during AIM's struggle for territorial rights.

But U.S. authorities have since acknowledged that the evidence used to extradite Peltier was fabricated.

Some 29 years later, he remains incarcerated at Leavenworth prison in Kansas despite concerns raised by human rights groups, including Amnesty International.

But Maloney Pictou says Graham's supporters are putting up "smoke and mirrors" by comparing Peltier's case to Graham's.

Earlier this month, the Leonard Peltier Defence Committee issued a statement saying Peltier had withdrawn his support for Graham.

Maloney Pictou, who was 11 when her mother was killed, said some of her lingering questions were answered last year as she sat at the trial of Graham's co-accused, Arlo Looking Cloud, who was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

The court was shown a videotaped confession that Looking Cloud made to the FBI, saying he witnessed Graham shoot Aquash with a .32-calibre revolver.

The homeless drug addict later recanted, saying the agents had plied him with alcohol and heroin.

Graham said FBI agents told him years ago that they would one day arrest him.

FBI agents and a U.S. marshal visited him four times at his home in the Yukon in the 1980s, he said, each time trying to persuade him to give them the name of an AIM member who ordered the hit on Aquash.

"They wanted me to go along with this story they've got and said that they'd give me protection and immunity and change my identity if I was to just name any AIM leader," he explained.

"I've never heard of an AIM leader ever give those orders. I've never gotten any orders like that from them and I have nothing to get immunity for and I just said I didn't do it."

Human rights groups in several countries, including Sweden and Germany, say Peltier's unjust extradition still means that Canada should proceed with caution when dealing with Graham.

"Our position is that the so-called evidence that the United States is applying is not very convincing and in light of the case of Leonard Peltier we think John should not be extradited to the United States," said Gunter Wippel of Human Rights 3000 in Freiburg, Germany.

Wippel said his organization, along with the Society for Threatened Peoples, also in Germany, has contacted federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler to express its concerns about Graham's possible extradition.

Under Canada's Extradition Act, the judge must consider whether there's enough evidence to commit Graham to trial had the offence occurred in Canada.

If B.C. Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Bennett decides he should be committed for extradition, Graham would have 30 days to submit any additional information to the justice minister for consideration before a final decision in his case is made - 90 days later.

LaLiberte, Graham's lawyer, said he will file an appeal if there's a chance his client will be extradited.

For Aquash's family, who had her body exhumed from South Dakota last April for reburial in her hometown of Indian Brook, N.S., they want to know the truth about who killed Aquash - something that may only happen if Graham stands trial.

"The real miscarriage of justice will be if her murder is not addressed," Maloney Pictou said.

© The Canadian Press, 2005

Thanks for this post! You have no idea...

Thanks so much for this terrific article. I think this is the truth.

This was the rare article that was not a Graham defense site...(The usual type of "government framed me" stuff.)

This girl was tied up and mistreated in an office full of AIMsters. There are lots of accessories to this murder. She got in way over her head. Thought she was in with a bunch of radicals and found a bunch of criminals.
She had children, too.

I wonder who he's going to spill the beans on?

They always call this a government cover up. If so, why has the US kept trying to extradite him??

This was an AIM cover up. I can't wait.

I am going out to a restaurant and have a steak and a drink. This is a great day. Goodie goodie goodie!!

http://www.freepeltier.org/aquash_agents1.htm
Co written by none other than Ward Churchill
The feds set her up scenario

see 12..co written by the "unbiased" Ward Churchill/sarcasm