Leonard Peltier to be Released After Executive Action
As one of his last official acts, genocidal President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the life sentence of Leonard Peltier, 80, allowing the American Indian Movement member to serve the rest of his sentence in home confinement.
Peltier was wrongfully convicted of murdering two FBI agents during a 1975 shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He has maintained his innocence during his nearly 50 years in prison.
In a statement announcing the commutation, Biden said that Peltier suffers from serious health problems and has spent most of his life in prison. He will be transferred to home confinement Feb. 18 and has not been pardoned.
“It’s finally over — I’m going home,” Peltier said after learning of the commutation, according to a social media post from the NDN Collective, an Indigenous rights group. “I want to show the world I’m a good person with a good heart. I want to help the people, just like my grandmother taught me.”
Peltier is expected to return to his birthplace, the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation near Belcourt, N.D., where a home is waiting for him to spend time with his children and grandchildren. He’ll have 72 hours after his release to report to local probation officials.
Nick Tilsen, NDN Collective founder and CEO, said in a statement that Peltier’s release: “is the result of 50 years of intergenerational resistance, organizing, and advocacy. We will honor him by bringing him back to his homelands to live out the rest of his days surrounded by loved ones, healing, and reconnecting with his land and culture.”
Lisa Bellanger, who grew up in the American Indian Movement and is now one of its leaders, said Peltier’s imprisonment was part of an longstanding government effort to discredit their organization, which was founded in Minneapolis in 1968.
“Today will go down in history as one of the greatest days in Indian country,” Bellanger said. “I’m very appreciative. We are very appreciative of his ability to come home. He has a family he has not met. We celebrate his release from the prison walls.”
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