Born 20 July 1979 (United States) Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier and two other prisoners fled federal prison. One of the fugitives was shot outside the prison, while the other was arrested an hour and a half later a mile away. Peltier, for his part, was arrested three days later in Santa Maria, California, after a farmer reported that he had stolen shoes, purse, car and food. Sentences that added another seven years in prison to the two that Peltier had before.

Peltier is of anishinaabe origin and militant of the Indian American Movement. Two prison sentences were imposed on him in 1975 for the killing of two FBI agents in the Pine Ridge Reserve. In the sacred lands of the South Dakota Sioux, a few months earlier uranium and coal had been discovered. In their attempt to exploit these raw materials, they persecuted the members of the Lakota people and killed more than 250 indigenous people, but almost 50 years later no case has been investigated. However, following the 27 June 1975 shooting, false testimonies against Peltier were collected immediately (and under pressure).

It was later discovered that the FBI had used the counter-intelligence program Cointelpro against dissent. The Cointelpro Program was born in itself for “the breakdown of the activity of the Communist Party of the United States”, but it also focused on other groups: Ku Klux Klan, the Socialist Workers’ Party and the Black Panthers, among others. Leonard Peltier and other members of the Pine Ridge Indian Movement were also found before the killing of the two FBI agents.

There are over 10,000 folios that certainly demonstrate Peltier’s innocence, but they remain classified. It's a long list of organizations and people who have asked for their freedom over these decades. Amnesty International, UN, Parliaments of Europe, Belgium and Italy, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Rigoberta Menchu… In 1980 the Court of Appeal acknowledged that in the report against Peltier “there is evidence of inadequate attitudes of FBI agents” and the Prosecutor’s Office acknowledged that there had been no direct evidence of the presence of the two agents. But the commission in charge of studying parole has always rejected Peltier’s requests “because it does not recognize the criminal responsibility for the killings”.

Leonard Peltier, 79, is ill. This is the oldest political prisoner in the United States, who has spent more time in jail: Almost 48 years. At the beginning of this month, the 45th anniversary of the attempted escape, the Peltier case has returned to court and has been denied probation for the umpteenth time.