[Ppnews] Lisbon court denies US extradition request for fugitive George Wright

Thu Nov 17 11:32:31 EST 2011

Lisbon court denies US extradition request for fugitive George Wright

By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, November 17, 8:05 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/report-lisbon-court-denies-us-extradition-request-for-fugitive-george-wright/2011/11/17/gIQAMuHWUN_story.html

LISBON, Portugal  A Lisbon court has denied a 
U.S. request for the extradition of captured 
American fugitive George Wright, his lawyer said Thursday.

The U.S. wants Wright returned to serve the rest 
of his 15- to 30-year jail sentence for a 1962 
killing in New Jersey. Wright was captured in 
Portugal in September after more than four decades on the run.

Wright’s lawyer, Manuel Luis Ferreira, told The 
Associated Press by telephone the court rejected the U.S. bid.

Ferreira said the judge accepted his arguments 
that Wright is now Portuguese and that the 
statute of limitations on the killing had 
expired. He declined to provide further details, 
saying he would speak to the media later in the 
day. Court officials couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Wright has been under house arrest for the past 
four weeks at his home near Lisbon, wearing an 
electronic tag that monitors his movements.

Wright spent seven years in a U.S. prison for the 
New Jersey murder before escaping in 1970, and 
was on the run for 41 years until his arrest. 
Wright had initially been held in a Lisbon jail since he was caught.

Ferreira previously told The AP he would argue 
Wright is now a Portuguese citizen and should be 
allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence in 
Portugal, where his wife and two grown children live.

Wright was captured in the seaside village where 
he has lived since 1993 after authorities matched 
his fingerprint on a Portuguese identity card to one in the U.S.

Wright got Portuguese citizenship through 
marriage in 1991 after Guinea-Bissau, a former 
Portuguese colony in West Africa, gave him the 
new name of “Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos” and made 
him a citizen. The identity from Guinea-Bissau 
was granted after the country gave Wright 
political asylum in the 1980s, and that was 
accepted by Portugal when it granted him citizenship, according to his lawyer.

Wright broke out of Bayside State Prison in 
Leesburg, New Jersey, on Aug. 19, 1970.

In 1972, Wright  dressed as a priest and using 
an alias  hijacked a Delta flight from Detroit 
to Miami along with others, police say.

After releasing the plane’s 86 other passengers 
for a $1 million ransom, the hijackers forced the 
plane to fly to Boston, then to Algeria, where the hijackers sought asylum.

Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20111117/1561728d/attachment.htm>