[IPSM] GLOBE & MAIL: "Anna Mae Aquash knew she was going to die"

[Stefan Christoff]

GLOBE & MAIL: Activist pleaded to live, U.S. says
Extradition hearing in Vancouver told about final days of N.S. Mi'kmaq
killed in 1975

by Mark Hume
Tuesday, December 7, 2004 - Page A12

{http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20041207/GRAHAM07/TPNational/?query=American+Indian+Movement}

VANCOUVER -- Anna Mae Aquash knew she was going to die.

In the atmosphere of fear and loathing that had gripped the American
Indian Movement, after a shootout near Wounded Knee had left two FBI
agents dead in 1975, the Canadian native-rights activist had come under
suspicion as a police agent. For two days she was taken, her hands tied
behind her back, from one house to another while AIM members decided what
to do with her.

Then on a lonely stretch of road on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in
South Dakota, the car rolled to a stop and Ms. Aquash, crying and begging
for her life, was marched toward a ravine and shot in the back of the
head.

In an extradition hearing yesterday that is revisiting those turbulent and
troubled times, the Supreme Court of British Columbia heard how Ms. Aquash
spent her last days after AIM members became convinced she was working as
an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Listening intently from the prisoner's docket was John Graham, now 50, who
was an AIM activist in the winter of 1975, when Ms. Aquash, 30, came under
suspicion.

Mr. Graham, whom the United States now wants to extradite to face a murder
charge, allegedly pulled the trigger.

In the public gallery were rows of Mr. Graham's supporters, officials from
AIM and members of the Leonard Peltier Defence Committee who all fear he
won't get a fair trial if he is returned to the United States. To them
this is not a simple extradition matter, but another Peltier case in the
making.

Mr. Peltier has been in jail for 27 years for killing the two FBI agents,
but the fairness of his trial has been widely questioned. In 1999 Amnesty
International called for his release, saying he is a political prisoner.

"If you really analyze this whole case [about Mr. Graham] . . . it's all
based on conjecture, rumour, gossip and we pray that the Canadian courts
will be able to see through that," said Vernon Bellecourt, a member of
AIM's executive.

Mr. Bellecourt, who has known Mr. Graham since the violent days of the
1970s, said he thinks the case is a continued effort by the government to
persecute AIM because it gave natives militant power. "It's AIM that is
really on trial here," he said.

But inside the court, Deborah Strachan, a federal Justice Department
lawyer, painted a very different picture, presenting a summary of witness
evidence gathered by U.S. authorities that portrayed a cold-blooded
killing.

Among the evidence were statements by Arlo Looking Cloud. He says he saw
Mr. Graham shoot Ms. Aquash, a Mi'kmaq from Nova Scotia.

According to a statement by John Trudell, another AIM member, Mr. Looking
Cloud told him how Ms. Aquash was killed.

"Aquash was crying and praying for her children and begging Looking Cloud
and Graham not to do this.

"Looking Cloud and Graham made Aquash kneel down in front of them and
Graham shot her in the back of the head," Ms. Strachan told court.

The defence, led by Vancouver lawyer Terry LaLiberte, has indicated it
will mount a constitutional argument against Mr. Graham's extradition.

Mr. Graham was arrested in Vancouver last December, shortly after Mr.
Looking Cloud was arrested in Colorado.

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