The Continued Fraudulent Prosecution Of Leonard Peltier

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http://nativenewsonline.net/opinion/continued-fraudulent-prosecution-leonard-peltier/

BY PETER CLARK / OPINION / 14 MAY 2014

“Of all the fabrications that the government has used to keep me imprisoned, this one hurt so deeply.” Leonard Peltier

Is true investigative journalism really dead? Is The New York Time’s writer Eric Konigsberg aware of his complicity in continuing the illegal, unconstitutional incarceration of Leonard Peltier?


Leonard Peltier has been in prison for 37 years

It is a fact that Darlene Ecoffey (previously Kamook Banks), wife of Robert Ecoffey (the lead investigator of Anna Mae Aquash’s murder and superintendent of the BIA on Pine Ridge), and ex-wife of AIM leader Dennis Banks, had worked with the FBI for perhaps more than a decade by the time of the trial of John Graham for the murder of Anna Mae in 2010. Mrs. Ecoffey previously testified in the Federal trial of Arlo Looking Cloud for the same crime.

Did Mr. Konigsberg read the transcripts from John Graham’s trial from which he shares so freely and irresponsibly, Mrs. Ecoffey’s uncorroborated, hearsay testimony against Leonard?

While Mrs. Ecoffey was on the stand testifying as a witness for the prosecution, John Graham’s defense attorney, John Murphy, expertly broke down her self developed theories, and motives during cross-examination. It is no small matter that there has been testimony that Ecoffey had assistance in developing her theories. Mrs. Ecoffey’s actions and testimony as a paid informant for the Federal government were clearly manipulated to include more fabricated evidence against Leonard Peltier. The alleged statements by Peltier were not shared by the former Kamook Banks until 2000, and came at a time of great support for his clemency bid. The same testimony was improperly used to deny his parole in 2009. Mr. Peltier has not had the ability to face his accuser and has been denied due process of law.

Like Leonard Peltier, American Indian Movement members Robert Robideau and Dino Butler were charged for the deaths of FBI agents Ron Williams and Jack Coler, at the shootout on Jumping Bull’s property, (Oglala), on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota on June 26, 1975. A young Indian man Joe Stuntz was also killed in the gun fight. His death has never been investigated. In a separate trial prior to Peltier’s arrest, both Robideau and Butler were found not guilty by reason of self defense. Before his death in 2009, Robideau had adamantly asserted that he alone fired the fatal shots at the agents in “… self defense to the end..”

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