Update on the health of Leonard Peltier, a prisoner at Coleman, north of Tampa

Leonard Peltier was convicted of murder in the deaths of two FBI agents in a 1975 shooting. He is being held at the United States Penitentiary, Coleman, which is north of Tampa. Many people think he was wrongly convicted and is a political prisoner. On Oct. 31, the Free Leonard Peltier Now X account posted that Peltier was released from the hospital and that he still needs medical care. WMNF spoke with Jean Roach, president of the ILPDC Board.

Jean Roach, International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee

“Well, Leonard’s been sick for a while and he continues to get worse every day. When he had COVID when he was inside Coleman, he was denied proper care. One, including basic drinking water. And everyone knows that Coleman has a bad water problem.

“So I just feel that his continued decline due to diabetes and his other heart issues can be avoided, you know, with the proper care. And one is real basic — is exercise. And when they’re on 24-hour lockdown, you don’t get that. And you know, a lot of the other prisoners suffered the same fate.

“So what we need to do is, you know, basically get the basic human rights thing, the human rights issues just brought to the real basic levels of, ‘Hey, we’re human, he’s human. Everybody there is human and they deserve basic health care and water for one.'”

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“So, Leonard right now, he’s going for executive clemency and he’s been for a long time. There’s been so many people that have been released, you know. People have shot at presidents and stuff like that and they’ve been released.

“Leonard Peltier has been in there for almost 50 years and there was no credible evidence — his initial trial was a railroad. So everybody knows the case. There’s so many violations all the way down from basic human rights constitutional, federal, even international laws are broken to keep Leonard or get him into the prison.

“And with all that, they still continued their vendetta. The FBI is the one reason why he’s in there.

“And they’re not allowed on our reservations in the very beginning. They should never have been there. And the reason why they came to Ogalla in 1975 was looking for somebody that stole somebody’s cowboy boots. What is that? That’s just a manufactured lie to have a reason to be there because they were there illegal. We have 1868 treaty which states has rules on that.

“And they continued to ignore our pleas for Leonard to be released as an elder. His co-defendants were acquitted on the basis of self-defense. That would be the same thing for him and anybody was there at that camp. It didn’t really matter what and who did what. The bottom line is we have a right to defend our freedom and they defended us as children, saved our lives. So he should not be in prison.”

Watch this interview:

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