Copyright © 1999 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Canadian Minister of Justice, Anne McLellan, denies her Government’s responsibility for the illegal extradition of Leonard Peltier.

One of the most controversial and well known aspects of the case of Leonard Peltier is the manner in which he was extradited from Canada after his arrest in 1976. At the time of Peltier’s arrest, the U.S. government did not have enough evidence against him to extradite him from Canada for the murders of the agents. For this reason, the FBI, in conjunction with Canadian prosecutor, Bob Halprin, obtained affidavits signed by a Myrtle Poor Bear, a Native American woman known to have serious mental problems. She claimed to have been Mr. Peltier’s girlfriend at the time, and to have been present during the shoot out, and to have witnessed the murders. In fact she did not know Mr. Peltier, nor was she present at the time of the shooting. She later confessed she had given the false statement after being pressured and terrorized by FBI agents. A third Poor Bear affidavit directly contradicting those submitted to the courts had been withheld by the FBI, and would later be uncovered before Peltier went to trial.

According to FBI documents, Halprin knew of the existence of this affidavit and he knowingly withheld it during the extradition proceedings. Yet, the complete Poor Bear incident was censored from the jury during Peltier’s trial. Poor Bear was not called as a witness by the prosecution, she was not allowed to testify on the behalf of the defense, and the contradicting affidavits were not allowed to be entered as evidence of government misconduct. No action has ever been taken by either the Canadian or the US governments to rectify this blatant use of FBI misconduct. The Canadian government continues today to cooperate with the U.S. government in obstructing justice for Leonard Peltier.

In 1995, as a result of mounting pressure compounded from Members of Parliament, the Royal Commission of Aboriginal Peoples, the Canadian Supreme Court, and Canadian citizens, the Canadian minister of Justice, Allan Rock, announced that he would conduct an official review of the extradition of Leonard Peltier. In doing so, he asked MP Warren Allmand to review the documents related to the extradition and make a private recommendation to him. MP Warren Allmand reviewed the documents and submitted a confidential letter to Minister Rock stating that the extradition was fraudulent and that without the Poor Bear affidavits, there was not enough evidence to extradite Peltier. But, Minister Rock changed offices, and never completed his review of the extradition.

More recently, Peltier supporters, workers unions, First Nations, and MP’s of Canada began pressuring Allan Rock’s successor, Minister of Justice Anne McLellan, to finish the review. On October 15, 1999, after stating that she had been waiting for the permission of the US government before moving forward, Ms. McLellan released her results. Not surprisingly, her reported results constituted a lazy acceptance of the positions of the Canadian and US governments rather than an actual review where responsible scrutiny of the proceedings would have occurred.

McLellan found that the extradition proceedings were legal. She based most, if not all of her conclusion on prior court proceedings despite the fact that it was the courts themselves who suggested that a governmental review be done because it was a matter regarding nation to nation relationships that they could not act upon. Sadly, Ms. McLellan utterly failed to do her job.

McLellan’s main argument for deeming the extradition legal is that the role of the Canadian court in an extradition hearing is only to hear the evidence presented and to decide whether that evidence might be enough for a conviction if the case was tried in Canada. However, it is not the judge’s role, says McLellan, to weigh the credibility of that evidence, making the fact that the Myrtle Poor Bear affidavits were false, irrelevant.

Minister McLellan outrageously refuses to confront the real issues at hand, namely that the Canadian prosecutor himself in conjunction with the FBI, purposely provided the courts with falsified affidavits, securing Mr. Peltier’s extradition to the US where he did not receive a fair trial as Canada had promised he would. It was not Anne McLellan’s responsibility to simply decide whether or not the courts acted in misconduct, but rather, to decide whether or not the extradition was legal overall, the role of the Canadian prosecutor and the FBI being totally relevant.

Though McLellan acknowledges that the Poor Bear affidavits were false and though she justifies their use by saying that it was not the courts responsibility to weigh their validity, she goes on to say, that had they not been used, there was enough circumstantial evidence to extradite Mr. Peltier anyway, a completely unfounded statement. According to FBI documents, Halprin, the Canadian prosecutor, clearly stated that the U.S. did NOT have enough evidence to extradite Mr. Peltier for the murders of the agents prior to the obtaining of the Poor Bear affidavits. That being the reason the Poor Bear affidavits were obtained in the first place.

On November 1st, 1999 former MP Warren Allmand, publicly released his previously confidential letter which he had submitted to Allan Rock in 1995 as well as his own response to McLellan’s findings. In his response, he argued that there is no way McLellan could have determined that there was enough evidence to extradite Peltier without the Poor Bear affidavits. There is absolutely no evidence or documentation that shows that the judge had felt this to be the case and in fact it is clear he relied solely on the Poor Bear affidavits in making his decision. Moreover, the circumstantial evidence laid out in McLellan’s report was either unrelated to the murder charges, was too flimsy to be taken seriously by a court of law, or it has since been impeached through FOIA documents (such is the case with the ballistic evidence).

In Allmand’s letter to Allan Rock he recommended that the Minister of Justice make a formal plea to the United States to either release Peltier through a grant of executive clemency or to grant him a new trial. Allmand requested that at the very least that he order an independent review, either by a learned counsel or by a retired judge. McLellan neglected to even consider Mr. Allmand’s advise and she did not post his letter as part of the documents relating to the extradition on her web site. It is an outrage that such blatant governmental misconduct can be left without any rectification. You can help by calling Minister of Justice, Anne McLellan and voicing your opposition to her report. Ask her how it can be legal for the Canadian and US governments to intentionally manufacture evidence. Ask her why she neglected to consider Warren Allmand’ s letter as part of her review and suggest that she order an independent review of the extradition.