USA: Time to Release Indigenous Leader Leonard Peltier

 It is time for the USA authorities to release Leonard Peltier, an Anishinabe-Lakota Native American and leading member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), who, as of February 2015, will have been imprisoned for over 39 years despite serious concerns about the fairness of proceedings leading to his conviction.

Leonard Peltier was arrested on February 6, 1976, in connection with the murders of two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, during a confrontation involving AIM members on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in June 1975.  While he admits to having been present during the incident, Leonard Peltier, who in 1977 was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the murders, has always denied killing the agents as alleged by the prosecution at his trial.  All legal appeals against Leonard Peltier’s conviction have been exhausted; his most recent petition for release on parole was denied by the pardon board in 2009, and he will not be eligible for parole again until 2024, when he will be 79.  Leonard Peltier is now 70 and after 39 years in prison he is in poor health.

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