Accused of murder, John Graham fights extradition

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On Feb. 6, after a three-day trial, Arlo Looking Cloud, 49, was convicted of aiding and abetting in the murder of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash.

Now there's another trial that may soon be heard in regards to her death, and a man waits in Vancouver under house arrest to see if Canada will ship him across the border to face prosecution in a United States court.

Looking Cloud's sentencing hearing was scheduled for April 23, two days after Windspeaker's publication deadline. American law calls for a minimum 25-year sentence for his part in the execution-style slaying of Pictou-Aquash, a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the 1970s.

In February 1976, the Mi'kmaq woman from Nova Scotia was found dead in a ditch on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota with a bullet in her head. More than 25 years later, in March 2003, federal prosecutors in the United States secured murder indictments against Looking Cloud and a Canadian citizen named John Graham.

Looking Cloud, an alcoholic living on the streets of Denver, Colorado, was arrested almost immediately. Graham, 48, a Tuchone from the Yukon, was arrested in December 2003 in Vancouver.

He will attend Federal Court in Vancouver on April 30 to set a date for a hearing where American prosecutors will try to convince a Canadian judge to order Graham extradited to the U.S. The actual extradition hearing is not expected to take place until the fall.

It's a case that has many AIM supporters wondering what really happened back in the chaotic hey-day of their time of influence in the '70s. Hoping to be able to line up the facts, Windspeaker interviewed both Graham and Denise Maloney Pictou, the daughter of Anna Mae.

Maloney Pictou and her sister Debbie Maloney, an RCMP officer, have been vocal in demanding that Graham stand trial.

"Please represent to your readers that our bottom line is that we just want to see Graham stand trial, and for a jury to hear all of the evidence and whatever defence he has, and for the jury to decide-but he has to be extradited for that to happen," said Maloney Pictou.

Graham said his lawyers will oppose the extradition, which falls under the Patriot Act in the United States.

"The whole extradition procedure, the Patriot Act, it's all unconstitutional," said Graham, hinting at the grounds on which his lawyers intend to fight his removal from Canada. "It violates everybody's human rights. Since 9/11, they've been doing this everywhere. So we're going to argue that whole extradition law, the constitutionality of it all," he said.

Those who have long memories will recall that in the mid-1970s, AIM activist Leonard Peltier was extradited from Canada to the U.S. by a Vancouver judge. The affidavit produced by the FBI in that hearing turned out to be based on false evidence. Peltier was soon convicted of murdering two FBI agents during a shoot-out at the Jumping Bull compound at Oglala on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He has been in jail for almost 29 years, despite world-wide calls for his release.

There were many irregularities during his trial and many believe he was falsely convicted. His latest appeal for parole was rejected by the United States Supreme Court in April. U.S authorities believe the deaths of the two FBI agents and the killing of Pictou-Aquash are linked.

Graham said he fears that he has been targeted by U.S. officials because he was in the Jumping Bull compound around the time when the agents were killed, and will suffer the same fate as Peltier.

"I'm very concerned because this whole thing has been a game by the U.S., by the state, right from the start. From the time of the first and second autopsies [of Pictou-Aquash] they've been bungling and fumbling this case," he said.

The first autopsy performed on the frozen body was badly bungled. FBI coroner W.O. Brown, missing the bullet in the body's head, concluded the death was due to exposure. The John GrahamDefense Committee (JGDC) allege Brown's coroner reports were routinely used to minimize or conceal the causes of deaths resulting from police/paramilitary attacks during this time of turmoil in U.S.-Indian relations.

More than 60 members or associates of AIM were killed on Pine Ridge between 1973 and 1976. The JGDC alleges that many of those deaths were at the hands of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) police and GOONs-Guardians of the Oglala Nation, a tribal police force employed by tribal president Dick Wilson.

In order to identify the body, the coroner cut of the hands sent them to an FBI lab in Washington, DC for fingerprint analysis. Still unidentified, the body was buried in Pine Ridge on March 2, 1976. The next day, the FBI identification division revealed the body to be that of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash.

The JGDC Web site states that on "March 5, her family in Nova Scotia was notified, and they demanded a second autopsy."

But Maloney Pictou told Windspeaker it was the FBI that demanded the second autopsy.

Dr. Garry Peterson, a doctor that worked in the area and was recommended by the AIM members, conducted the second autopsy.

"From that day to this he has been questioned about this theory that FBI collusion led to the 'botched' first autopsy and that it was part of an FBI cover-up, a theory Dr. Peterson has dispelled and consistently said that he does not believe," said Maloney Pictou. "Dr. Peterson's testimony at Arlo Looking Cloud's trial reflected that, and I think his expert opinion is more credible than that of the John Graham Defense Committee," she said.

"If the FBI had been responsible for my mother's murder, they would have known who she was and how she died. So they would not have wanted a second autopsy, and they certainly wouldn't have wanted a pathologist employed by [the Wounded Knee Legal Defense Committee] and AIM to perform that autopsy and to discover how she died. For the record, W.O. Brown, who performed the 'botched' fist autopsy, was contracted by the BIA to perform autopsies on Pine Ridge and his contract was cancelled after the autopsy he performed on my mother's body."

The night of Pictou-Aquash's death, the FBI alleges she was taken from a house in Denver by AIM members Graham, Looking Cloud and a woman named Theda Clark, who has not been implicated in the murder. The FBI asserts she was driven to various offices in Rapid City, South Dakota. One of these included the legal offices of the Wounded Knee defense committee. From there, it is alleged Pictou-Aquash was taken to houses on Pine Ridge and then executed.

The FBI alleges that Pictou-Aquash was suspected by the AIM membership of being an informant and knew sensitive information related to the Oglala shoot-out where the FBI agents died, and because of this knowledge she was killed.

Graham has always maintained his innocence, and admits to driving Pictou-Aquash from Denver to Pine Ridge, where she was left at a safe house. He claims he was her friend and only learned later that she had been killed.

He was asked why Anna Mae's daughters seem to believe he and Looking Cloud are guilty.

"They're being led to believe that. I imagine they are feeling resentment or anger towards AIM as a movement for their mother being involved," he said.

Maloney Pictou said that the only things that lead her to believe Graham is guilty is the evidence that came out at Looking Cloud's trial, and a conversation she had with Looking Cloud himself.

Maloney Pictou alleges that during a phone conversation with Arlo Looking Cloud, he told her and her sister that John Graham "shot our mother" and that Looking Cloud was an eyewitness.

Although the JGDC disputes the reliability of it, there is a video-taped confession by Alro Looking Cloud that was shown at his trial. The JGDC points out that on the video Looking Cloud admits he'd been drinking.

"In his videotaped admission Arlo states... 'John Graham shot Anna Mae in the head a she was praying,'" Denise Maloney Pictou said.

Graham said that as a hard-core alcoholic who had been living on the streets for many years, Looking Cloud could have been easily confused and manipulated by the police and prosecutors.

"The feds, the state has been doing this on AIM for years now. Disinformation, misinformation and putting out false memos, rumors and innuendoes. It's still being done today," he said.

"They've got conflicting reports about the whole thing. This whole case is just haywire. The fact that the FBI and the GOONs have distanced themselves from any involvement and they're getting away with it, that blows me away. And I cannot understand why the daughters would agree that, with Arlo, there was a trial that took place there, that there was any kind of justice. That was a manufactured, guaranteed conviction for the state. That's all that was."

He was asked why he believed that.

"There was 1,001 questions that were never asked. He had no defence. The defence lawyer was a state-appointed lawyer that was working for the state. They were going to convict anybody. They did it with Leonard, they did it with Arlo and I know they'll do the same with me. There's no chance I'll even be able to present a defence," he said.

Maloney Pictou believes the evidence that came out at trial was convincing.

"Twenty-three prosecution witnesses, the most damning being former AIM members, all provided sworn testimony that demonstrated Looking Cloud's complicity and guilt in the murder of my mother," she said. "Looking Cloud's defence was that he didn't shoot her or know that she was going to be shot." In his sworn testimony, Looking Cloud said he was surprised when Graham shot Pictou-Aquash. Maloney Pictou said Graham's supporters and attorney are trying to deal with that testimony by creating a controversy about the quality of the Looking Could defence at trial.

"Looking Cloud was found guilty by a multi-racial jury (Lakota, African-American,