Peltier's lawyers seek hidden FBI files

Buffalo, New York: An attorney for imprisoned Native 
American Indian activist Leonard Peltier accused the government 
September 13 of withholding documents in the case to cover up its 
own misconduct 30 years ago.

Michael Kuzma asked a federal judge to order the release of all 
documents from the FBI's Buffalo field office as part of the 
larger effort to free Peltier, 60, who is serving consecutive 
life sentences for the shooting deaths of two FBI agents during a 
1975 standoff on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Earlier this year, the FBI released 797 of the 812 pages compiled 
by Buffalo investigators but withheld 15 pages, citing national 
security and foreign relations concerns. The Buffalo files were 
sought by Peltier's lawyers in the wake of their discovery, 
through a related Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, of a 
heavily excised 1975 Teletype message from the Buffalo office to 
then-FBI Director Clarence M Kelley. The message pointed to a 
government informant's efforts to infiltrate Peltier's defence 
team.

The Buffalo material is among tens of thousands of pages 
generated by FBI field offices nationwide and being sought by 
Peltier supporters seeking to have his conviction overturned.

At the time of the 1977 trial, the government turned over roughly 
3,500 pages of material to defence attorneys, claiming that this 
was the full extent of their files. Subsequent FOIA requests by 
Peltier's attorneys to the FBI over the past two decades, 
however, have revealed that over 142,000 pages of material were 
improperly concealed from Peltier and his lawyers. The 
Minneapolis field office alone has 90,000 pages on the case that 
Peltier's lawyers have never seen.

The withheld pages from the FBI's Buffalo office, Kuzma said, may 
be "the kind of things that would help in an attempt to secure a 
new trial". They might also result in the outright overturning of 
the conviction and Peltier's release.

Department of Justice attorney Preeya Noronha told US District 
Judge William Skretny that the FOIA provides for withholding the 
15 pages in question for national security reasons.

Kuzma said the government's explanation for the exemptions to the 
FOIA was too vague.

Saying the government mishandled the investigation early on, 
Kuzma charged the true purpose of fighting the documents' release 
was "to shield further misconduct from the public spotlight".

"The FBI is hellbent on blocking the disclosure of this 
information and keeping Leonard Peltier in jail for the rest of 
his natural life", Kuzma said.

Peltier was convicted in 1977 of shooting deaths of FBI agents 
Ronald Williams and Jack Coler during the reservation standoff 
and was sentenced to consecutive life sentences at Leavenworth, 
Kansas. There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting, and 
ballistics tests, which were deliberately concealed from the 
court by the FBI at the time, showed the bullets could not have 
been fired from the alleged murder weapon.

Peltier denies he was responsible. Supporters claim Peltier was 
framed for the shootings because of his political activism, in 
particular because of his membership in the American Indian 
Movement (AIM), an organisation that vigorously defended 
indigenous people's rights. In the early and mid-'70s, AIM 
members were targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO program for 
harassment. COINTELPRO tactics included disseminating 
misinformation, levying false charges against individuals, 
manufacturing evidence, and occasionally assassinating key 
leaders of targeted groups.

In another court action last November, the 10th US Circuit Court 
of Appeals in Denver took the government to task over the case 
while denying Peltier a parole hearing. "Much of the government's 
behaviour at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of 
Mr Peltier is to be condemned", the ruling said. "The government 
withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not 
disputed."

Judge Skretny, noting "what appears to be the clearly established 
government misconduct", said he may opt to privately review the 
withheld documents in deciding whether to order their release.

"I can't just rubber stamp the claim that the exemption applies 
here", Skretny said. He did not immediately rule on the request.

Despite his 28-year-long incarceration, Peltier's spirit remains 
unbroken and he closely follows current events.

In connection with the Abu Ghraib revelations, for example, he 
recently told the World: "None of this is surprising to me or any 
of my fellow US prisoners. This stuff goes on all the time in US 
prisons. As for what happened at Abu Ghraib, they were and are 
war crimes."

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Amnesty 
International, the National Congress of American Indians, the 
Robert FKennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Archbishop 
Desmond Tutu and the Rev Jesse Jackson, among many others, have 
called Peltier a political prisoner who should be immediately 
released.

To find out more about his case, visit www.leonardpeltier.org or 
www.freepeltier.org.

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People's Weekly World Communist Party USA