AND
N June 1975 had A shooting between militants of the American Indian movement (AIM) and agents of the Federal Research Office (FBI) in the Pine Ridge reserve in Dakota del Sur.
The clash left three dead, an AIM militant and two FBI agents, who immediately launched the largest hunt in its history by the AIM militants who fled the place.
Months later, Dino Butler and Bob Robideau were arrested. Leonard Peltier managed to escape Canada.
Butler and Robideau were tried for the death of the two agents in the state of Iowa, far from the shooting scene and were declared not guilty for reasons of self -defense. Peltier was extradited from Canada later and had a separate trial in Fargo, North Dakota, a more conservative area and was sentenced to two consecutive perpetual chains based on information not presented to Peltier’s defense, as a ballistic report that showed that the weapon Attributed to Peltier, an AR-15, it was not the one that shot the agents.
Peltier spent the last 50 years in several federal prisons in the United States. He managed to escape for a time from the Lompoc prison, California, so he obtained another conviction.
I read about the case in the late 80s while living in New York. I was fascinated and looked for more and more information about the case, including hundreds of FBI documents and reports from their defense lawyers. I contacted their defense committee and they passed my phone number to Peltier and we used to talk every day, to a reverted collection. I spent December 1989 in the then Czechoslovakia during the velvet revolution And I talked about Peltier’s case with Czech friends who later had government posts and in the media. Upon returning to the United States I decided to visit Peltier in the federal prison of Leavenworth, something I did in 91 and 92 thanks to the help of the Czechoslovakia embassy.
When visiting Peltier in Leavenworth, the mayor of the prison gave us an empty plant for the interviews I did. Peltier taught me how to get coffee out of the machine they had inside the place of visits for prisoners and their relatives. We had coffee and talk a lot about that day in June 1975 and the long years in jail since then. Peltier passed my information to his defense committee to try to convince the then president of Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel, to intercede before the then president George Bush to free Peltier, as Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama, between others.
Presidents went and went without doing anything for Leonard Peltier, even though they showed interest, but they didn’t want to anger the powerful lobby of the FBI. The other day I began to receive messages saying that President Joe Biden had signed a decree releasing Peltier from the jail for house arrest, now sick and with 80 years. Something is something. Welcome home, Leonard. We have to have another coffee soon at your home and without the towers of the jail outside.
*Journalist and author of the book Leonard Peltier: Indian struggle aloud
