WASHINGTON — Amnesty Worldwide is interesting to President Joe Biden to make use of his ultimate weeks in workplace to “rectify a case of injustice” by releasing 80-year-old Native American rights activist Leonard Peltier from jail.
“As a matter of humanity, mercy, and human rights, you should grant clemency and release Leonard Peltier,” reads a Wednesday letter to Biden from Paul O’Brien, govt director of Amnesty Worldwide USA.
“This would not only allow Peltier to be home with his family and community for his last years, but it would also help mend the fractured relationship between Native Americans and the U.S. government, which could be forever part of your legacy,” mentioned O’Brien.
A White Home spokesperson didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Right here’s a replica of O’Brien’s letter, which additionally calls on Biden to take actions like closing the Guantanamo Bay detention heart and altering course in response to the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Peltier, who is almost blind and struggles to stroll, has been in jail for nearly 50 years. He’s broadly thought of to be America’s longest-serving political prisoner.
The U.S. authorities convicted him for murdering two FBI brokers in a 1975 shoot-out on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. However his trial was carried out with unbelievable misconduct: The FBI threatened and coerced witnesses into mendacity. Federal prosecutors hid proof that exonerated Peltier. A juror admitted on Day 2 of the trial that she was biased towards Native American folks, however she was stored on anyway.
The federal government’s case fell aside after these revelations, so it abruptly revised its expenses towards Peltier to aiding and abetting whoever did kill these brokers — totally on the grounds that he was one in every of dozens of individuals current when the shoot-out befell.
The FBI and U.S. legal professional’s workplace later admitted they by no means did determine who killed these brokers. There was by no means proof that Peltier dedicated against the law.
In his letter to the president, O’Brien raised considerations about Peltier’s well being — he has diabetes and an aortic aneurysm — amid the continued unfairness of his imprisonment. Peltier was hospitalized in July after his diabetes reportedly prompted him to “develop open wounds and tissue death on his toes and feet.” He was hospitalized once more in October.
“No one should be imprisoned after a trial riddled with uncertainty about its fairness,” O’Brien wrote, “and keeping him locked behind bars does not serve justice.”
Members of Congress, U.S. senators, Indigenous rights teams, Hollywood celebrities and worldwide human rights leaders together with Pope Francis and Nelson Mandela have referred to as for Peltier’s launch over the a long time. The principle purpose he’s nonetheless in jail, if not the one purpose, is due to staunch opposition from the FBI. However the bureau’s said causes for opposing Peltier’s launch are stuffed with holes, outdated and remarkably straightforward to disprove.
“The FBI remains resolute against the commutation of Leonard Peltier’s sentence for murdering FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams at South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975,” the bureau asserted to HuffPost in a 2022 assertion. “We must never forget or put aside that Peltier intentionally and mercilessly murdered these two young men and has never expressed remorse for his ruthless actions.”
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The FBI nonetheless has not publicly addressed the important thing context of that 1975 shoot-out, both: The FBI itself was deliberately fueling tensions on that reservation as a part of a covert marketing campaign to suppress the actions of the American Indian Motion, or AIM, a grassroots motion for Indigenous rights. Peltier was an energetic AIM member and an FBI goal.
Biden has authority to unilaterally launch Peltier earlier than he leaves workplace. Presidents traditionally announce batches of clemencies on the ends of years, and notably on the ends of their phrases.
Biden wouldn’t even must formally pardon the Native American elder; he might merely grant Peltier clemency, which might enable him to reside out his ultimate years at residence along with his household in South Dakota with out the U.S. authorities concurrently conceding it was flawed to imprison him.
HuffPost spoke to Peltier in a uncommon interview in Could 2022. Requested what he would say to Biden if he had a couple of minutes alone with him, he mentioned his message could be easy.
“I’m not guilty of this shooting. I’m not guilty,” Peltier mentioned. “I would like to go home to spend what years I have left with my great-grandkids and my people.”
