WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th August, 2020) Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez wrote a letter to US President Donald Trump calling on him to commute the death sentence of the sole Native American who is on death row.
"Mr. President... we believe a grant of Executive Clemency with a commutation of the death penalty sentence, replaced with life imprisonment, for Lezmond Mitchell is appropriate to begin to restore harmony and balance to the affected families and to the inherent sovereignty of the Navajo Nation," Nez said on Tuesday.
Mitchell, 38, was sentenced to death in 2007 for kidnapping and murdering two Navajo victims - 63-year-old Alyce Slim and her nine-year-old granddaughter, on Navajo Nation territory.
The Navajo Nation president said that the death penalty is incompatible with the First Nations' cultural beliefs and noted that during the original trial the Navajo Nation and the US Attorney for the District of Arizona advocated against a death sentence.
Mitchell is set to be executed on August 26.
