Two daughters, two parents, and echoes of a murder that rocked Indigenous activism | 24CA News

In Halifax, Denise Pictou Maloney says the trauma and grief from the 1975 homicide of her mom, Indigenous activist Anna Mae Aquash, has by no means dimmed. Pictou Maloney was 9 when she final noticed her.

In Vancouver, Naneek Graham vividly remembers American FBI brokers visiting her household’s residence in Yukon within the Eighties to threaten her father, John Graham, with prosecution if he didn’t co-operate with the homicide investigation.

Thirty-five years after the killing, Graham, a member of the American Indian Movement, was convicted of murdering Aquash by capturing her at the back of the pinnacle in South Dakota.

For a long time, the 2 households on reverse sides of Canada have been unwillingly sure by the legacy of the homicide that rocked the Indigenous motion 49 years in the past, sparking years of authorized wrangling and publicity about who ordered the hit, who carried it out, and why.

Now, Graham, 68, is attempting to return to Canada to serve out the rest of his life sentence. He is looking for what’s often called a treaty switch from South Dakota and final month utilized to the Federal Court of Canada to attempt to transfer the method alongside.

Graham’s daughter mentioned the case has been a defining thread all through her life, a “horrible nightmare” since her father’s incarceration.

“My dad’s been in jail for quite some time now and he’s ready to come home,” Naneek Graham mentioned.

“He’s always maintained his innocence right from Day 1,” she mentioned. “He really just wants to come home.”

But Pictou Maloney mentioned Graham’s bid to return is “highly offensive.”

She mentioned she nonetheless will get goosebumps interested by the final time she noticed her mom.

“She got down on her knees and looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘I want you to please look after your sister,’” she mentioned. “The second thing she said was, ‘always speak the truth.’”

Pictou Maloney mentioned the Nova Scotia-born Aquash returned to the U.S. towards the needs of her household, who wished her to remain in Canada to keep away from each U.S. regulation enforcement and the American Indian Movement, which had suspected Aquash of being an informant.

“That was her goodbye because I think she knew that things were going to go terribly wrong for her,” Pictou Maloney mentioned. “She had to go back to prove that she wasn’t the person they were accusing her of.”

Instead of clearing her identify, Aquash’s physique was found on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation in early 1976.

It would take a long time earlier than two members of the American Indian Movement, Graham and Arlo Looking Cloud, have been tried and convicted of the homicide. But Pictou Maloney mentioned those that ordered the hit have been by no means delivered to justice.

Graham’s case grew to become a trigger célèbre, along with his proposed extradition opposed by some Canadian politicians, unions and First Nations representatives. Some supporters believed he was harmless and unfairly focused by American regulation enforcement.

But he was despatched to the United States in 2007 and was convicted in late 2010, leading to a life sentence in jail in South Dakota the place he stays.

‘OUR CLIENT DESERVES BETTER’

Controversy over Graham’s extradition has continued.

The B.C. Court of Appeal in 2022 discovered his Charter rights have been breached, as a result of, whereas Graham was extradited to face a federal cost of first-degree homicide, he was as a substitute convicted on state costs, and a waiver permitting the change was improperly granted by Canada’s justice minister.

Graham now desires to return to Canada, a bid that has been held up for years. In an software submitted to the Federal Court of Canada final month, his attorneys say that the switch has hit a snag as a result of South Dakota officers “failed to comply” with requests for the paperwork wanted to course of it.

The court docket software seeks to compel Canada’s public security minister to request the paperwork.

“The minister has unreasonably delayed in deciding on 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 direct request of the State of South Dakota,” Graham’s Federal Court software says.

The delay, Graham claims, has “undermined” his proper to request a switch underneath the International Transfer of Offenders Act.

South Dakota Assistant Attorney General Paul Swedlund mentioned in an electronic mail 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 where Graham must serve his sentence,” Swedlund mentioned.

Graham’s lawyer, Marilyn Sandford, mentioned in an interview that the waiver problem stays excellent and is separate from his treaty switch software.

She mentioned repeated makes an attempt to speak with U.S. authorities and jail officers haven’t produced outcomes.

“In the meantime, we have a client in the background who is languishing and who is in custody in a foreign country far from his family,” Sandford mentioned. “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 mentioned Graham has been caught in a “terrible situation” as he awaits phrase on his switch bid.

“I’ve been down to see him and it’s not a pleasant thing to see a Canadian stranded in custody so far from home,” she mentioned.

The Ministry of Public Safety deferred touch upon Graham’s case to the Correctional Service of Canada, which mentioned in an emailed assertion that it “is aware of John Graham’s application to the Federal Court of Canada.”

The assertion mentioned, “for privacy reasons, we cannot comment on specific cases.”

Naneek Graham mentioned 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’s never been able to speak for himself, ever,” she mentioned.

“He’s been sitting in jail for over 16 years now for something that 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 bid to get again to Canada represents one other thorn of intergenerational trauma 50 years after her mom’s homicide.

She mentioned the killing was emblematic of the perils confronted by Indigenous ladies from inside and with out, after they increase their voices in opposition to oppression.

“There are a lot of people out there that would like to see me silenced, and I would say that just from knowing my risk as an Indigenous woman out here speaking the truth with what happened to my mother,” she mentioned.

“He’s able to appeal as much as he can,” mentioned Pictou Maloney of Graham. “You know, my only wish is that my mother got to come home too.”