freejohn
vancouver 08
"John Graham is a Southern Tutchone from the Yukon Territory. He is currently imprisoned at the Pennington County Jail in Rapid City, South Dakota, and his trial date has been set for October 2008. John Graham was arrested in Vancouver in December 2003, and after a prolonged legal battle including leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, he was extradited to South Dakota in December 2007. The allegations against John are of murdering fellow AIM member and Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Anna Mae Pictou in 1975. John Graham denies he killed Anna Mae.
In the mid-1970s, AIM was carrying out armed stand-offs in defence of the land including the 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. As a result, AIM was one of the primary targets of the COINTELPRO counter-intelligence program aimed to weaken, confuse, and arouse suspicion amongst AIM members. At different times, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, Leonard Peltier and John Graham all said they were offered their freedom if they collaborated with the FBI against other AIM members; they all refused. On the killing of Anna Mae, former FBI regional director Norm Zagrossi has himself stated it ‘looked like a cover-up’ . Ellen Klaver, a journalist in Colorado who has followed the story for three decades, has observed that, ‘Whoever was involved, the FBI was the architect.’ Both the B.C. Supreme Court extradition judge and the B.C. appeal court ruled there were deficiencies in the record of the case given to the courts by U.S. officials.
However the 1999 Extradition Treaty between the United States and Canada lowers the burden of proof to include hearsay evidence, which would not be admitted in a Canadian criminal court. Graham and his lawyers have stated they would welcome a trial in Canada, where the fake evidence could be exposed. A key witness, Arlo-Looking Cloud, recanted his testimony stating that he was coerced and under the influence of alcohol. Another prosecution witness Kamook Banks admitted she was paid $43,000 to cooperate with the FBI.
Graham has received support from a wide range of organizations including the Canadian Labour Congress, Native Youth Movement, Chief Capilano of the Squamish Nation, BC Teachers for Peace and Global Education, BC Hospital Employees Union, Stopwar.ca, Council of Yukon First Nations, BC Federation of Labour. Amnesty International has also stated their concern about the lack of a fair trial, given the clear parallels to Leonard Peltier. Peltier was extradited from Vancouver in 1976; now widely known on false evidence. In 1979 former [Canadian] Solicitor General Warren Allmand acknowledged this and formally ‘apologized’, yet he remains behind bars as one of the most well-known political prisoners of our time.
The US government, with Canadian government complicity and cooperation, is intent on repressing the last remnants of AIM. Graham’s current legal struggle reflects the political repression faced by Indigenous people who struggle against state and corporate control over Native lands and resources and reflects the ongoing reality of the ‘Indian Wars’."
ourfreedom.wordpress.com/category/john-graham/
freejohn
vancouver 08
"John Graham is a Southern Tutchone from the Yukon Territory. He is currently imprisoned at the Pennington County Jail in Rapid City, South Dakota, and his trial date has been set for October 2008. John Graham was arrested in Vancouver in December 2003, and after a prolonged legal battle including leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, he was extradited to South Dakota in December 2007. The allegations against John are of murdering fellow AIM member and Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq Anna Mae Pictou in 1975. John Graham denies he killed Anna Mae.
In the mid-1970s, AIM was carrying out armed stand-offs in defence of the land including the 1973 standoff at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. As a result, AIM was one of the primary targets of the COINTELPRO counter-intelligence program aimed to weaken, confuse, and arouse suspicion amongst AIM members. At different times, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, Leonard Peltier and John Graham all said they were offered their freedom if they collaborated with the FBI against other AIM members; they all refused. On the killing of Anna Mae, former FBI regional director Norm Zagrossi has himself stated it ‘looked like a cover-up’ . Ellen Klaver, a journalist in Colorado who has followed the story for three decades, has observed that, ‘Whoever was involved, the FBI was the architect.’ Both the B.C. Supreme Court extradition judge and the B.C. appeal court ruled there were deficiencies in the record of the case given to the courts by U.S. officials.
However the 1999 Extradition Treaty between the United States and Canada lowers the burden of proof to include hearsay evidence, which would not be admitted in a Canadian criminal court. Graham and his lawyers have stated they would welcome a trial in Canada, where the fake evidence could be exposed. A key witness, Arlo-Looking Cloud, recanted his testimony stating that he was coerced and under the influence of alcohol. Another prosecution witness Kamook Banks admitted she was paid $43,000 to cooperate with the FBI.
Graham has received support from a wide range of organizations including the Canadian Labour Congress, Native Youth Movement, Chief Capilano of the Squamish Nation, BC Teachers for Peace and Global Education, BC Hospital Employees Union, Stopwar.ca, Council of Yukon First Nations, BC Federation of Labour. Amnesty International has also stated their concern about the lack of a fair trial, given the clear parallels to Leonard Peltier. Peltier was extradited from Vancouver in 1976; now widely known on false evidence. In 1979 former [Canadian] Solicitor General Warren Allmand acknowledged this and formally ‘apologized’, yet he remains behind bars as one of the most well-known political prisoners of our time.
The US government, with Canadian government complicity and cooperation, is intent on repressing the last remnants of AIM. Graham’s current legal struggle reflects the political repression faced by Indigenous people who struggle against state and corporate control over Native lands and resources and reflects the ongoing reality of the ‘Indian Wars’."
ourfreedom.wordpress.com/category/john-graham/