Why won the FBI release Peltier files?
By Joe Allen | September 8, 2006 | Page 2 LEONARD PELTIER, one of America’s longest serving political prisoners, will turn 62 years old September 12. He has spent 30 years of his life behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit–in one of the most infamous cases of political persecution in modern U.S. history. On September 8, Peltier’s lawyer Barry Bachrach will argue in federal court for the full release of all files maintained by the FBI’s Minneapolis office relating to Peltier. Peltier was an active member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the 1970s. He was framed for the murder of two FBI agents on the Lakota Sioux Pine Ridge reservation in June 1975. AIM was a major focus of the FBI’s notorious Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) of the 1960s and ’70s, which attempted to “neutralize” the leadership of civil rights and revolutionary political organizations. Two other AIM members, Bob Robideau and Dino Butler, were also indicted with Peltier, but were found not guilty afte
