CALGARY - A national Metis group has joined with the mother of a slain Alberta Mountie in her fight to keep her son's body buried near his hometown.

The Metis National Council has taken out ads in newspapers in Calgary and Regina calling on the widow of Const. Leo Johnston to reconsider her plans to exhume his body from its resting place in Lac La Biche, Alta., and move it to an RCMP cemetery in Saskatchewan.

Johnston was one of four officers gunned down by James Roszko in an ambush on his farm near Mayerthorpe, Alta., in March 2005.

"I hope you will reconsider your decision to have your husband disinterred and taken away from his people and his family,'' says the open letter to Kelly Johnston, signed by council president Clement Chartier.

"His resting place is a place of honour, an enduring testament to his selfless sacrifice and an eternal memorial to his cherished place in the hearts of his family and the Metis Nation.''

The slain officer's mother, Grace Johnston, said Chartier had originally been contacted by community members in Lac la Biche, and stressed she and her family did not initiate any communication with the council.

However, she said Chartier did call her to discuss the council getting involved.

"I said whatever anyone felt comfortable in doing and could live with, they had our permission,'' she said. "We do really appreciate what they are doing.

"Do I think it's going to help? I don't know.''

She said she is simply trying to follow what she knows were her son's wishes.

"Mr. Chartier is doing this on the fact that Leo is a Metis,'' she said. "Based on their beliefs and our own religious beliefs, you do not exhume a body.''

In an interview from Saskatoon, Chartier said the issue goes beyond being a private family matter.

"You may be an individual but you're still part of a community. It's a community feeling of respect and wanting to continue interaction with you even though you have passed away.

"It goes beyond the immediate family.''

The $6,000 ads are only slated to run once, Chartier said.

The council has also written to RCMP Commissioner William Elliott to ask for a meeting to try to resolve the dispute.

Chartier admitted to feeling some trepidation before stepping into the middle of a painful family dispute.

"I know how deeply this must go,'' he said. "I know it's a serious step for us to take and it is going to arouse emotions. But at the end of the day we felt a responsibility to try and get this whole matter resolved.''

Last month, Alberta's Court of Appeal upheld a lower court ruling that allows Kelly Johnston to determine where her husband should be buried.

The three-member panel of judges could find no evidence that the original permit to exhume the body had been granted improperly. Furthermore, the court found that the director of vital statistics was under no obligation to inform Grace Johnston of the reburial plans, since by law the wife's wishes outrank those of the mother.

Grace Johnston has said she'll seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

In court documents, Kelly Johnston says moving her husband's body from Lac La Biche to the RCMP national cemetery is the best way to honour him.

The letter is the latest step in an ugly dispute that has pitted Johnston's parents, friends and family against his widow. A previous attempt at disinterment saw 30 people gather at the cemetery to stop gravediggers until word arrived that the court challenges would go ahead.

Three years after her son's death, Grace Johnston is still a near-daily visitor to his grave.