[news] Wife of AIM leader says Leonard Peltier Killed

[sharai]

The Rapid City Journal
2/5/04
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Wife of AIM leader says Leonard Peltier admitted killing FBI agents

By Heidi Bell Gease, Journal Staff Writer

RAPID CITY -- With a courtroom hanging on her every word, the former
common-law wife of American Indian Movement leader Dennis Banks
testified Wednesday that she and the late Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash heard
Leonard Peltier brag about killing two FBI agents at Oglala in 1975.

Darlene Nichols, also known as Ka-Mook Nichols, said the women were
traveling with Peltier and Banks in late 1975. "He (Peltier) put his
hand like this," she said, using her thumb and forefinger to imitate a
gun, "and started talking about the two FBI agents."

Nichols continued tearfully, "He said, 'That (expletive) was begging for
his life, but I shot him anyway.'"

Peltier, who is currently serving consecutive life sentences for the
deaths of agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams, maintains he is innocent.
His attorney, Barry Bachrach, denied Nichols' accusations in an
interview with The Associated Press, saying: "I'm not sure who put her
up to it, but it is unequivocally false. This whole trial is about
smearing Leonard and other AIM people and covering up history."

Nichols' words were the most riveting part of the first full day of
testimony in the murder trial of Arlo Looking Cloud, who is accused of
helping to kill AIM activist Pictou-Aquash in December 1975. Nichols'
testimony was part of a larger picture as prosecutors sought to show
that Pictou-Aquash feared for her life in the months before her death.

Nichols had a front-row seat for AIM activities in the 1970s. She joined
the movement as a teenager and soon became involved with Banks, with
whom she had four children before they separated 17 years later.

She told how, during a national AIM convention in June 1975, there were
repeated rumors and accusations that Pictou-Aquash was a federal informant.

Defense attorney Tim Rensch objected repeatedly to that and similar
testimony, saying the answers involved hearsay. In most cases, U.S.
District Judge Lawrence Piersol ruled that the testimony had limited
admissibility: Jurors could not take the statements as fact but could
consider them as evidence of Pictou-Aquash's state of mind.

Nichols said the rumors were openly discussed and that Pictou-Aquash was
obviously upset and afraid. "I heard that (Peltier) had taken her away
from the camp in a car and had put a gun to her head and wanted to know
if she was an informant," Nichols testified. "She told him that if he
believed that, he could go ahead and shoot."

Peltier, Banks, Nichols, Nichols' sister and Pictou-Aquash began
traveling together by motor home in the fall of 1975, when Peltier and
Banks were both fugitives. Nichols said Pictou-Aquash was watched
constantly. "Somebody always went around with her," she said.

In Oregon, a highway patrol officer stopped the vehicle. Everyone but
Banks got out, and Banks drove away and escaped. Peltier started running
and was shot, but Nichols said he, too, managed to escape. The others
were arrested, and Nichols and Pictou-Aquash shared a jail cell for weeks.

U.S. Attorney Jim McMahon asked what Pictou-Aquash's state of mind was.
"She was upset. She was crying," Nichols said. "I knew that she was
scared of Leonard and Dennis at that point."

Nichols, who clutched an eagle feather while on the witness stand, said
she never saw Pictou-Aquash alive after that. She learned Pictou-Aquash
was dead when Banks called her on Feb. 24, 1976 - the same day
Pictou-Aquash's body was found. Earlier in the day, retired FBI agents
had testified that they weren't able to identify Pictou-Aquash's
decomposed body until after her severed hands were sent to a Washington,
D.C., lab, where fingerprints could be taken.

Nichols said she remembered the day Banks called because it was her
nephew's birthday. Later, she chose to cooperate with law enforcement,
she said. "I (had) started believing the American Indian Movement had
something to do with it."

Nichols said she contacted the FBI and later wore a wire to record
conversations with Looking Cloud, Banks and others.

In cross-examination, Rensch asked Nichols about her work as a
California movie casting director. She admitted that her salary is
irregular and that she earned only about $9,000 last year.

"Do you have plans to sell your story?" Rensch asked her.

"No," she replied.

Rensch also questioned whether Pictou-Aquash was really being held
against her will in the motor home. Nichols said Pictou-Aquash wasn't
tied up and didn't ask to leave. "I think if she had wanted to leave,
there would have been an incident," she said.

Nichols testified that she has received $42,000 from the federal
government, some of it reimbursement for her travel expenses. The
government also paid to move Nichols from California to a safer location
in New Mexico because of her involvement with the case. She said she
moved again after Banks learned where she was living.

Former AIM member Mathalene White Bear also testified that Pictou-Aquash
was afraid in 1975. Pictou-Aquash came to see her in California that
September, White Bear said, and told White Bear that threats had been
made on her life.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't she also afraid of the FBI?"
McMahon asked.

"Yes," White Bear said.

Before Pictou-Aquash left, she showed White Bear an unusual silver
filigree ring. She also gave her a phone number, saying that she hoped
the next time White Bear saw the ring, it would be on Pictou-Aquash's
finger. "But if it were to come to me another way, then what I was to do
was to call that phone number," White Bear said.

White Bear later received three phone calls from Pictou-Aquash. The
first time, Pictou-Aquash said she was OK and was waiting for word on
what to do next. The second time, she was more upset. "She said she felt
like she was being caged in," White Bear said. "The people she was with
had her afraid to go outside. They had her afraid that she was being
watched, is the feeling she got."

By the third call, Pictou-Aquash sounded scared. "She knew something was
going wrong," White Bear said. That call was disconnected.

White Bear cried, saying that was the last time she spoke with
Pictou-Aquash. A few days after that call, she testified, "I got a
little box in the mail ... And when I opened it up, all that was in
there was the silver ring."

White Bear called the telephone number Pictou-Aquash had left, which
belonged to John Trudell, a former national AIM president and poet. He
picked up the ring.

"Then, I spent 28 years of hell waiting to find out what happened, the
truth," she said.

Earlier in the day, several retired FBI agents and experts testified
about how the investigation and autopsies were conducted.

Rensch questioned agents about cultivating agents, and whether any were
involved in "Cointelpro," a counterintelligence program. All denied any
involvement.

Rensch asked if retired FBI agent William Wood had ever tried to "snitch
jacket" a person - to start rumors that people were government agents
when they really weren't.

"Absolutely not, no," Wood replied. "As far as I know, that wasn't a
technique that was used."

Testimony resumes at 9 a.m. today.

Contact Heidi Bell Gease at 394-8419 or heidi.bell at rapidcityjournal.com

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