US Tries to Stop Geronimo Lawsuit

According to the BBC, US officials have moved to block a legal bid by descendants of Apache leader Geronimo to have his remains reburied. Geronimo's relatives say some body parts were stolen almost 100 years ago by members of a society linked to Yale University to keep in their clubhouse.

The relatives want to rebury the warrior, who died in 1909, near his birthplace in New Mexico. But the justice department has asked a federal judge to dismiss their lawsuit.

The society, known as Skull and Bones, is alleged to have stolen some of Geronimo's remains from a burial plot in Oklahoma in 1918.

Government lawyers want to remove the U.S. goverment as a defendant in the case, saying that the government was not involved in the alleged theft of bones. The same lawyers have no objection to the lawsuit's claims against the other defendants: Yale University and the Order of the Skull and Bones.