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John Graham is shown during an interview in Vancouver, British Columbia, in Nov. 2001. File photo was made available by the Aboriginal Peoples TV Network. AP Photo/Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, File

Extradition to South Dakota

By Carson Walker

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP)—A Canadian man accused of killing an American Indian Movement activist in 1975 will be extradited to the United States to stand trial.

The Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday dismissed an appeal from John Graham, a former AIM member who is charged with murder for the slaying of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Her body was found in February 1976 with a gunshot wound to the head.

One of Aquash's two daughters said she was overwhelmed after learning of the decision.

"We were sitting on edge hoping and praying that it would be news in our favor so we could move on," said Denise Maloney Pictou of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Graham was taken into custody in June after a Vancouver judge denied his appeal. The Supreme Court was his last hope of avoiding return to the U.S. to stand trial, and Marty Jackley, U.S. attorney for South Dakota, said Graham will be brought back soon.

Greg DelBigio, Graham's lawyer, could not be reached immediately for comment Thursday. Graham has said he is not guilty.

The American Indian Movement is an activist group that has protested the federal government's treatment of Indians and demanded that the government honor its treaties with tribes. AIM first gained national attention in 1972 when it seized the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C. The next year the group occupied Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation during a 71-day standoff that included an exchange of gunfire with federal agents who surrounded the village.

Aquash's slaying came amid a series of clashes in the mid-1970s between federal agents and members of the American Indian Movement. Aquash, a member of the Mi'kmaq Tribe of Canada, was among Indian militants who occupied Wounded Knee.

American prosecutors said AIM leaders ordered Aquash's killing late in 1975 because they suspected she was a government informant. AIM leaders denied the accusation and blamed the government for her death.

Another man charged with killing Aquash, Fritz Arlo Looking Cloud, received a mandatory life sentence in 2004 after a federal jury convicted him of first-degree murder committed in the perpetration of a kidnapping. A federal appeals court upheld the conviction.

Witnesses at Looking Cloud's trial testified that Graham shot Aquash.

A Canadian judge ruled in 2005 that Graham should be extradited and the Canadian minister of justice affirmed that decision last year.

Carson Walker is an Associated Press writer.