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RAPID CITY, S.D.—A federal jury Thursday began deliberating the fate of a man facing a murder charge in a killing on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation 34 years ago, during the height of the militant American Indian Movement.

Attorneys on Thursday morning made their closing arguments in the trial of Richard Marshall, who is accused of providing the gun that was used to kill AIM activist Annie Mae Aquash in December 1975. The case went to the jury shortly after 11:30 a.m.

Aquash, a member of Mi’kmaq Tribe of Nova Scotia, participated in the AIM’s 1973 armed occupation of the Pine Ridge village of Wounded Knee, a two-month siege that included ferocious gunbattles with federal officers.

Prosecutors believe AIM leaders later ordered Aquash killed because they thought she was a government informant. Federal investigators have denied Aquash was a snitch.

Marshall earlier pleaded not guilty to murder and aiding and abetting murder.

During the trial that began April 14, the government’s key witness described Marshall as an enforcer for a leader of AIM, a group that clashed with tribal and federal agents in the 1970s. Arlo Looking Cloud, who is serving a life sentence for his role in Aquash’s death, testified that Marshall provided the murder weapon.

Looking Cloud also acknowledged years of drug and alcohol abuse and lying to authorities. Marshall’s lawyer, Dana Hanna, said Looking Cloud’s testimony was not credible.

Hanna, who earlier in the trial had unsuccessfully sought a mistrial, on Wednesday asked U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol to acquit Marshall after the prosecution rested its case. Piersol refused.