Leonard Peltier, an activist for the rights of the Amerindians detained for almost half a century for the murder of two FBI agents, was released on Tuesday morning from a federal prison in the center of Florida.
Mr. Peltier, 80, will purge the rest of his two perpetuity sentences in the home grip in northern Dakota, where he is a member of the Turtle Mountain of Chippewa band.
The switching of Mr. Peltier’s sentence was one of the end acts of former president Joseph R. Biden Jr. before leaving his duties. Those who urge the leniency for Mr. Peltier, who is in poor health and partially blind, included the winners of Nobel Peace, former officials of the application of laws, including one of the main prosecutors on the case, Human rights organizations and celebrities like Steven Van Zandt, Bruce’s guitarist for Bruce, the street group of Springsteen.
FBI agents, notably Christopher Wray, the former director of the agency, strongly opposed the Clemence for Mr. Peltier, saying that it was a betrayal of fallen agents, Jack Colaer and Ronald Williams. Mr. Wray described Mr. Peltier as “killer without remors”.
He was convicted of his role in a shooting between militants and FBI agents in the Indian Pine Ridge reserve in 1975 who made two agents and a dead activist. The prosecutors said that the agents had been killed at the point of close range.
Mr. Peltier admitted to having shot his weapon at a distance, but insisted that he acted in self -defense and did not kill the agents.
Of the more than 30 people present during the shooting, Mr. Peltier was the only one to be found guilty of a crime. Two other Native American activists were tried for murder, but were acquitted. Disappointments admitted in their trials, including ballistic evidence, have been excluded from that of Mr. Peltier, who, according to his supporters, was one of the ways in which his trial was unfair.
A court of appeal concluded in 1986 that the government had deliberately retained evidence, but said that the evidence would probably not have changed the verdict.
Mr. Peltier was to undergo a medical exam on Tuesday before going to the Dakota in the North.
