Leonard Peltier turns 70 next year, and continues to be held in the maximum security wing of the Coleman Federal Penitentiary in Florida as what many consider to be a political prisoner. His health is weak and is wish is to die at home. To do so, the Turtle Mountain Ojibway citizen would need a Presidential pardon, something that many have pushed for from Nelson Mandela to actor Robert Redford.

Redford, who released the documentary, Incident at Oglala in 1992, hopes that President Barack Obama will grant the pardon or commute Peltier’s sentences as he told The Sunday Edition recently as reported by CBC news.

Obama, however, has granted the fewest pardons of any president.

Redford has made similar requests in the past to President Bill Clinton, but that was denied.


“I am very hopeful and will raise my voice in any way,” Redford told The Sunday Edition.

His voice follows that of former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples James Anaya, who visited Peltier in January.
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