Family of 1975 slaying suspect shocked by swift extradition

Last Updated: Friday, December 7, 2007 | 2:39 PM ET

CBC News

The family of B.C. resident John Graham, who is accused in a decades-old murder in the U.S., say they are shocked and angry he was extradited without notice hours after the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal to stay in the country.

His daughter told CBC News she doesn't understand why the family wasn't given a chance to say their goodbyes, especially since he was already in custody.

"We weren't given anything. Nobody would hear anything. We just wanted to see our dad at least before he was extradited," said Naneek Graham, one of his eight children in Canada.

Early Thursday, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear Graham's appeal of a lower court ruling granting extradition. The top court did not provide a reason, as per usual for such applications.

Graham's lawyer, Greg DelBigio, told CBCNews.ca that there has been no formal confirmation, but he believes Graham was whisked from the North Fraser Pretrial Centre around 9 or 10 a.m. PT to South Dakota, hours after the court decision.

Graham, a former Yukoner who now lives in Vancouver, is accused of killing Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, a Mi'kmaq activist from Nova Scotia, in 1975 during a time of protests in South Dakota by the American Indian Movement (AIM).

Graham's daughter says her father is being kept at Pennington County Jail in Rapid City, S.D., and he was scheduled to appear in court Friday afternoon.

U.S. prosecutors allege the 30-year-old woman was killed on orders from AIM because they believed she was an FBI informant.

Earlier in protests by the group, two FBI agents had been killed by the demonstrators who had seized control of the village of Wounded Knee.

U.S. authorities say Pictou-Aquash fled to Denver out of fear for her life, but then was allegedly abducted by Graham and others and brought back for questioning by AIM members.

Another man, Arlo Looking Cloud, was convicted of first-degree murder in Pictou-Aquash's death in 2005 and sentenced to life in prison.

Looking Cloud told FBI agents that he saw Graham kill the woman, but later recanted. Graham has maintained his innocence.