A judge in Sioux Falls, S.D., will decide Friday whether the U.S. government has jurisdiction in the case of a Yukon man accused of killing a woman from Nova Scotia 33 years ago.

John Graham, a Southern Tsimshian, is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Annie Mae Aquash of Pictou, N.S., in 1975 on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Aquash was a Mi'kmaq and a member of the activist American Indian Movement.

Graham and two others charged in her death, Richard Marshall and Arlo Looking Cloud, were also AIM members.

Graham's defence team want the case thrown out on the grounds the U.S. judges have no jurisdiction in the case, given that both Graham and Aquash were Canadians and neither of them belonged to an American Indian tribe.

Prosecutors have argued that Graham's indictment stands on solid legal ground as Looking Cloud, who was convicted for his role in the slaying in 2004, fits the definition of "Indian" in the United States.

While Graham's trial is due to begin Monday, District Judge Lawrence Piersol said after hearing arguments Thursday, his preliminary opinion was that Graham's indictment was "insufficient."

Aquash killed over suspicions, witnesses say

Witnesses at Looking Cloud's trial said he, Graham and another AIM member, Theda Clarke, drove Aquash from Denver and that Graham shot her in the Badlands as she begged for her life.

Prosecution witnesses at his trial have testified that Aquash was killed because AIM leaders thought she was a government spy.

AIM leaders have denied any involvement in her death.

Cloud is serving a mandatory life term for his role in the killing. Marshall pleaded not guilty to aiding and abetting first-degree murder after being indicted in August.

Clarke, who now lives in a nursing home in Nebraska, was not charged.

While Graham has denied killing Aquash, he acknowledged he was in the car with her as she travelled from Denver.

With files from the Associated Press