The prolonged imprisonment of Native American rights activist Leonard Peltier is arbitrary, and the U.S. government should release him immediately, concludes a damning legal opinion released by the United Nations Human Rights Councils Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.

Taking into account all the circumstances of the case, including the risk to Mr. Peltiers health, the appropriate remedy would be to release Mr. Peltier immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law, says the group of legal experts behind the 17-page opinion.

Peltier, 77, has been in prison for 46 years without any evidence that he committed a crime and after a trial that was riddled with misconduct .

The U.N. Human Rights Council working group didnt even go into the glaring problems with Peltiers conviction; it notes that it refrains from examining matters that are for the national authorities to determine, like whether there was sufficient evidence to put Peltier in prison or whether his conduct has been exemplary in prison. Instead, the working group focused on whether Peltiers parole process has met international standards. It has not.

Peltier has been deprived of his liberty in contravention of articles 2, 7 and 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and articles 2 (1), 9 and 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, says the legal opinion.

The working group is saying that between Peltiers poor health and advanced age, his frequent placement in solitary confinement, and the difference between his time in prison compared to non-Native Americans convicted of similar offenses, there is clear evidence that his continued detention is unjust. The opinion also cites discriminatory comments made by his parole examiners in concluding, Mr. Peltier continues to be detained because he is Native American.

The U.S. government has six months to provide information to the working group demonstrating the actions it has taken in response to the injustices outlined in the opinion.

We are pleased that the Working Group was willing to review Leonards case a second time after these past 17 years of unjust parole proceedings and arbitrary imprisonment, said Kevin Sharp, Peltiers pro bono attorney and a former U.S. District Court judge appointed by President Barack Obama . The Working Group did not parse their words. They issued an immediate call to action, and the U.S. government must take Leonards clemency case seriously and release him back to the care of his tribe.

Heres a copy of the full legal opinion, which was issued on June 7 but wasnt publicly circulated until this month:

The reason that Peltier is in prison at all is because the FBI and U.S. attorneys office needed a fall guy after it failed to figure out who killed two FBI agents in a 1975 shootout on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Peltiers co-defendants were acquitted based on self-defense. He was the last one available, so the U.S. government arrested him and put him through a trial that would not hold up in a U.S. court today. Prosecutors hid key evidence. The FBI threatened and coerced witnesses into lying. A juror admitted she was biased against Native Americans on the second day of the trial, but she was allowed to stay on anyway.

Based entirely on testimony from people who had been intimidated by the FBI, and operating within a 1970s-era criminal justice system tilted against Indigenous rights activists like Peltier, the U.S. attorneys office successfully charged him with murder.

The FBI remains the biggest obstacle to Peltier going home, even as its argument for keeping him in prison is full of holes and misinformation . By all appearances, the bureau simply wants him to die in prison.