Incident at Oglala

The Indian Leonard Peltier has been in jail since 1977 on suspicion of the assassination of two FBI agents, but there is sufficient reason to doubt the legal grounds for the case. Step by step, the evidence is undermined in Incident at Oglala, through conversations with the chairman of the jury, who questions the evidence, with eyewitnesses that make contradictory statements and with one witness who is obviously mentally disturbed. To what extent was discrimination against a community tucked away in a reservation close to a junkyard a factor? Did the FBI have a bone to pick with the militant American Indian Movement? Whether Peltier did or did not pull the trigger back in 1975 remains unclear, but the documentary provides sufficient proof for the theory that the legal procedure was unreliable.The same year, Michael Apted made the feature film Thunderheart, which deals with the same subject. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)