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New complaint filed against Canadian in decades-old slaying
by CBC News
U.S. prosecutors filed a new complaint against a Yukon man on Friday,
less than two hours after a South Dakota judge dismissed his indictment
in the killing of a Nova Scotia woman almost 33 years ago.
by CBC News
U.S. prosecutors filed a new complaint against a Yukon man on Friday,
less than two hours after a South Dakota judge dismissed his indictment
in the killing of a Nova Scotia woman almost 33 years ago.John Graham and family
The ruling means John Graham's trial, which was to begin Monday, has been cancelled. But the new complaint will probably send the case before a grand jury again.
The indictment had been dismissed earlier Friday because the judge ruled that the U.S. government has no jurisdiction in the case.
Graham, a one-time member of the activist American Indian Movement group, was accused of killing fellow AIM member Annie Mae Pictou-Aquash, of Pictou, N.S., at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation around Dec. 12, 1975. Her body was found the following February.
Graham, a member of the Southern Tutchone First Nation from the Yukon, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Pictou-Aquash.
In addition to Graham, two other AIM members, Arlo Looking Cloud and Richard Marshall, were charged in Pictou-Aquash's death. Looking Cloud was convicted of murder in 2004 and Marshall is awaiting trial.
Graham had been scheduled to go to trial Monday in Rapid City, S.D.
In earlier proceedings before Judge Lawrence Piersol in Sioux Falls, Graham's lawyer argued that a U.S. court had no jurisdiction in the case, since neither Graham nor Pictou-Aquash, a Mi'kmaq, belonged to an American Indian tribe, and because both were Canadians.
The prosecution has argued the case falls within the U.S. government's jurisdiction because both Graham and Pictou-Aquash were affiliated with the Olgala Lakota Sioux tribe as AIM members.
Prosecutors also have said that Pictou-Aquash had married an enrolled Lakota member in a traditional ceremony.
In addition, they have said Graham was complicit with Looking Cloud, who was convicted of first-degree murder in 2004 for his role in the slaying.
Looking Cloud serving life term
Graham, a one-time member of the activist American Indian Movement group, was accused of killing fellow AIM member Annie Mae Pictou-Aquash, of Pictou, N.S., at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation around Dec. 12, 1975. Her body was found the following February.
Graham, a member of the Southern Tutchone First Nation from the Yukon, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Pictou-Aquash.
In addition to Graham, two other AIM members, Arlo Looking Cloud and Richard Marshall, were charged in Pictou-Aquash's death. Looking Cloud was convicted of murder in 2004 and Marshall is awaiting trial.
Graham had been scheduled to go to trial Monday in Rapid City, S.D.
In earlier proceedings before Judge Lawrence Piersol in Sioux Falls, Graham's lawyer argued that a U.S. court had no jurisdiction in the case, since neither Graham nor Pictou-Aquash, a Mi'kmaq, belonged to an American Indian tribe, and because both were Canadians.
The prosecution has argued the case falls within the U.S. government's jurisdiction because both Graham and Pictou-Aquash were affiliated with the Olgala Lakota Sioux tribe as AIM members.
Prosecutors also have said that Pictou-Aquash had married an enrolled Lakota member in a traditional ceremony.
In addition, they have said Graham was complicit with Looking Cloud, who was convicted of first-degree murder in 2004 for his role in the slaying.
Looking Cloud serving life term
Witnesses at Looking Cloud's trial said he, Graham and another AIM member, Theda Clarke, drove Pictou-Aquash from Denver, and that Graham shot her in the Badlands as she begged for her life.
Prosecution witnesses at his trial have testified that Pictou-Aquash was killed because AIM leaders thought she was a government informant.
AIM leaders have denied any involvement in her death.
Looking Cloud is serving a mandatory life term for his role in the killing. Marshall pleaded not guilty to aiding and abetting first-degree murder after being indicted in August.
Graham has now been charged with three alternative counts of first-degree murder for committing and aiding and abetting others in the killing of Aquash on or about Dec. 12, 1975, near Wanblee, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Marty Jackley.
The indictment states that Graham and Aquash are both Indians and the charges carry a penalty of life in prison.
For four years, Graham fought his extradition to the United States from Vancouver, but was extradited in December after the Supreme Court of Canada refused to review his case.
Aquash's family had her remains exhumed from an Oglala grave in 2004 and reburied in her native Nova Scotia.
Aquash was among the Indian militants who occupied the village of Wounded Knee in a 71-day standoff with federal authorities in 1973 that included an exchange of gunfire with agents who surrounded the village.
Clarke, who now lives in a nursing home in Nebraska, has not been charged.
While Graham has denied killing Pictou-Aquash, he has acknowledged he was in the car with her as she travelled from Denver.
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