Achi news desk-
In Halifax, Denise Pictou Maloney says the trauma and grief of the 1975 murder of her mother, Indigenous activist Anna Mae Aquash, has never faded. Pictou Maloney was nine years old when he last saw her.
In Vancouver, Naneek Graham vividly remembers American FBI agents visiting her family’s Yukon home in the 1980s to threaten her father, John Graham, with prosecution if he did not cooperate with the murder investigation.
Thirty-five years after the killing, Graham, a member of the American Indian Movement, was found guilty of murdering Aquash by shooting him in the back of the head in South Dakota.
For decades, the two families on opposite sides of Canada have been reluctantly bound by the legacy of the assassination that rocked the Indigenous movement 49 years ago, sparking years of legal wrangling and publicity over who ordered the hit. , who carried it out, and why. .
Now, Graham, 68, is trying to return to Canada to serve out the rest of his life sentence. He is seeking what is known as a treaty transfer from South Dakota and last month he applied to the Federal Court of Canada to try to move the process forward.
Graham’s daughter said the case had been a defining thread throughout her life, a “horrific nightmare” since her father’s imprisonment.
“My dad has been in prison for quite some time now and he’s ready to come home,” said Naneek Graham.
“He has always maintained his innocence from Day 1,” she said. “He really wants to come home.”
But Pictou Maloney said Graham’s request to return was “very offensive.”
She said she still gets goosebumps thinking about the last time she saw her mother.
“He got up on his knees and looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘I want you to take care of your sister,'” she said. “The second thing she said was, ‘always speak the truth.'”
Pictou Maloney said Aquash, who was born in Nova Scotia, returned to the United States against the wishes of her family, who wanted her to stay in Canada to avoid US law enforcement and the American Indian Movement, which had suspected Aquash of being an informant.
“That was her goodbye because I think she knew things were going to go horribly wrong for her,” Pictou Maloney said. “She had to go back and prove she wasn’t the person they accused her of being.”
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Instead of clearing her name, Aquash’s body was found on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation in early 1976.
It would take decades before two members of the American Indian Movement, Graham and Arlo Looking Cloud, were tried and found guilty of the murder. But Pictou Maloney said those who ordered the hit were never brought to justice.
Graham’s case became a cause célèbre, with his proposed extradition opposed by some Canadian politicians, unions and First Nations representatives. Some supporters believed he was innocent and had been unfairly targeted by American law enforcement.
But he was sent to the United States in 2007 and convicted in late 2010, resulting in a life sentence in prison in South Dakota where he remains.
‘OUR CLIENT DESERVES BETTER’
Controversy over Graham’s extradition has continued.
The BC Court of Appeal found in 2022 that his Charter rights had been violated, because, although Graham had been extradited to face a federal charge of first-degree murder, he was instead convicted on state charges, and granted a waiver allows the change improperly by Canada. minister of justice.
Graham now wants to return to Canada, a request that has been held up for years. In an application submitted to the Federal Court of Canada last month, his lawyers say the transfer hit a snag because South Dakota officials “failed to comply” with requests for the paperwork needed to process it.
The court application seeks to compel Canada’s public safety minister to request the paperwork.
“The minister has unreasonably delayed deciding whether to make a direct request to the State of South Dakota for the required documentation. The minister undoubtedly has the power to make such a request directly to the State of South Dakota,” said Graham’s Federal Court application.
The delay, Graham claims, has “undermined” his right to request transfer under the International Extradition Act.
South Dakota Assistant Attorney General Paul Swedlund said in an email that the allegations made to the Federal Court “are not accurate,” and the state opposes Graham’s return to Canada.
“These crimes were committed in the state of South Dakota and, therefore, it is in the State of South Dakota that Graham must serve his sentence,” Swedlund said.
Graham’s lawyer, Marilyn Sandford, said in an interview that the waiver issue is still unresolved and is separate from his request to transfer a contract.
He said repeated attempts to communicate with the US government and prison officials have not produced results.
“In the meantime, we have a client in the background who is languishing and is in custody in a foreign country far from his family,” Sandford said. “We write and we write and we write and we seem to get nowhere and never get an answer, and I think our client deserves better than that. “
Sandford said Graham had been stuck in a “terrible situation” as he waited for word on his transfer request.
“I’ve been down to see him and it’s not a pleasant thing to see a Canadian stuck in custody so far from her home,” he said.
The Ministry of Public Safety deferred comment on Graham’s case to the Correctional Service of Canada, which said in an emailed statement that it was “aware of John Graham’s application to the Federal Court of Canada.”
The statement said, “for privacy reasons, we cannot comment on specific cases.”
Naneek Graham said her father “has a right to his side of his story and his truth, but he’s never been able to share that, and he wants to share it.”
“He wants people to know what happened in all these lies, and he has never been able to speak for himself, ever,” he said.
“He’s been sitting in prison for over 16 years now for something he didn’t do, and not being able to tell his truth is really heartbreaking, it’s sad.”
But for Pictou Maloney, John Graham’s request to return to Canada represents another thorn of intergenerational trauma 50 years after her mother’s murder.
He said the killing was a sign of the dangers faced by indigenous women from the inside and outside, when they raise their voices in opposition to oppression.
“There are a lot of people out there who would like to see me shut up, and I would say that just knowing my risk as an indigenous woman out here speaking the truth about what happened to my mother,” she said.
“He can appeal as much as he can,” said Pictou Maloney of Graham. “You know, my only wish is that my mother has to come home too.”
