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“You’re trying to paint me as the bad guy. That picture was taken for one reason and one reason only: it was to be used at the year-end report,” he said.

Nanwakolas Council president Dallas Smith said councillors were extremely saddened to learn that images of an open burial box were taken with a First Nations’ individual standing next to the box.

“The fact that this incident involved one of our own nation’s members is troubling and does not make it any less hurtful or wrong,” he said in a news release posted on the council’s website.

The council co-operated with the ministry and RCMP investigations, and it chastised Sewid.

We have made it clear to the individual depicted in the photos that we condemn his involvement in this horrific incident

“We have made it clear to the individual depicted in the photos that we condemn his involvement in this horrific incident,” Smith said.

Sewid said he explicitly told Washington state photographer Katya Palladina not to publish the pictures and three months later he saw the pictures on the Internet.

“I contacted her and said ’Get that God damned picture off your blog now.”

Palladina was accompanied by Andrew Elizaga, who shot video during the encounter.

Both Palladina and Elizaga say Sewid told them they could freely shoot pictures and video at the burial site.

“I asked if we were allowed to photograph and Tom assured us, ’Yes. If it will be used to educate people that you shouldn’t go there,”’ Palladina said. “He brought us there. We never would go there on our own,” she said.

Elizaga provided a copy of a video to back up their account. The video shows Sewid lifting a lid off a burial box revealing human skeletal remains and speaking to the videographer.