Man jailed for killing activist

Arlo Looking Cloud admitted being present at the killing

A former member of the American Indian Movement has been jailed for life for murdering a fellow activist in 1975.

Arlo Looking Cloud, 51, was found guilty of killing Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash, whose body was found on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.

The trial heard that Anna Mae, a 30-year-old Micmac Indian from Canada, was suspected of being an FBI informant within the movement, known as Aim.

Looking Cloud, a hobo, was arrested in Denver, Colorado in March 2003.

On Thursday Anna Mae's body was exhumed from a grave on the reservation by her family, who plan to take it back to Nova Scotia for reburial.

Anna Mae Aquash was suspected of being an FBI informant

At Friday's hearing Looking Cloud's lawyer, Terry Gilbert, requested permission to make further DNA tests on the body but his application was denied.

Mr Gilbert, who replaced Looking Cloud's court-appointed trial attorney Tim Rensch after he asked to be removed from the case, said he planned to appeal.

A second man, John Graham, is fighting extradition from Canada. He is alleged to have been the man who actually pulled the trigger.

Looking Cloud's trial was dominated by the evidence of Kamook Nichols, former wife of Aim leader Dennis Banks, who claimed Anna Mae told her that another activist, Leonard Peltier, had bragged about killing two FBI agents in June 1975.

Peltier is serving two life sentences in Leavenworth penitentiary in Kansas for the murder of the agents.

His supporters claim he is innocent, and say he is a "political prisoner".