Da: "Michael Novick"
Oggetto: [stop-polabuse] FBI, agents, director sued by Leonard Peltier
Data: venerd́ 5 aprile 2002 8.11
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/094/wash/Imprisoned_American_Indian_act:.shtml
Imprisoned American Indian Activist Sues FBI for Violating Civil Rights
By Associated Press
4/4/2002
WASHINGTON (AP) FBI agents and Director Louis Freeh denied imprisoned
American Indian activist Leonard Peltier a fair chance at clemency and
parole when they publicly protested against him in 2000, a lawsuit to be
filed in federal court Thursday alleged.
The FBI has said the agents were off-duty at the time and had a
constitutional right to protest the possibility of Peltier's gaining
freedom after being convicted in the death of two agents.
The action, which Peltier's lawyer said would be filed in U.S. District
Court in Washington, charges that Freeh and the agents ''engaged in a
systematic, and officially sanctioned campaign of misinformation and
disinformation designed to prevent'' Peltier's clemency request from
receiving fair consideration.
It requests the court to order the agents' silence on the issue and to pay
$1 million in damages.
''I have a problem with them speaking at all if they are active agents,''
Peltier's lawyer, Bernard V. Kleinman, said Thursday.
The agents should be ordered not to protest because ''there may still be
individuals that could still be affected by the case,'' Kleinman added.
''If that's the case then I don't understand why they're able to speak at
all.''
Just before leaving office, President Clinton considered granting Peltier
clemency for his convictions in the 1975 killings of the two FBI agents.
Ultimately, Clinton denied clemency. Kleinman says that's because the
president may have been swayed by the march of more than 500 FBI agents and
families outside the White House.
Peltier was convicted in the June 26, 1975, murders of agents Ron Williams
and Jack Coler on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota as they
were searching for robbery suspects, according to FBI officials. Both were
shot in the head at point-blank range after they were injured. The bodies
were left on a dirt road.
Peltier was charged with taking part in the slayings, but whether he fired
the fatal shots was never proved. After fleeing to Canada and being
extradited to the United States, he was convicted and sentenced in 1977,
despite defense claims that evidence against him had been falsified.
On the Net:
Leonard Peltier Defense Committee: http://www.freepeltier.org
Clemency opponents: http://www.noparolepeltier.com Owned and run by FBI
Special Agent Ed Woods
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