Longtime political prisoner Leonard Peltier was granted clemency on January 20. Leonard will be able to spent the rest of his life sentence from his home, starting on February 18.
Leonard Peltier was arrested for a shootout in June 1975 on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in which two FBI agents were shot and killed. Although there is no evidence against him, and his two co-defendants were acquitted before his trial started, Peltier was convicted in 1977 by a racist court hand-picked by the FBI to get a guilty verdict. Other government misconduct during Peltier’s trial included coercion of witnesses, intentional use of false testimonies, hiding ballistics evidence, and manufacturing a murder weapon. Despite all of this, Peltier has been consistently denied requests for a new trial. Instead, Peltier has spent almost 50 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Today, Leonard is 80 years old, and he suffers from several health problems. On January 20, the outgoing Biden administration granted Leonard clemency, and he will be released from prison on February 18.
Over the years, many people and organizations have fought for Leonard’s release and freedom. We are now happy to hear of Leonard’s clemency and to know that he will finally be able to spend time with his family and friends, outside of prison walls.
”It’s finally over – I’m going home…”, Leonard said, in a statement released by the NDN Collective.
UNTIL ALL ARE FREE
