US appeals Portugal denial of fugitive extradition

MADRID (AP) ? The U.S. Justice Department announced Tuesday that it has appealed a Portuguese judge's decision not to extradite a fugitive who spent 41 years on the lam on three continents, and recently admitted to hijacking a plane from the United States to Algeria near the start of his fugitive odyssey.

The appeal to extradite George Wright, 68, was filed with the Portuguese Court of Appeals in Portugal's capital of Lisbon, but Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney declined to provide details on legal arguments because there are no public court filings in the case. In Portugal, extradition cases are conducted in secret.

Wright's lawyer, Manuel Luis Ferreira, declined comment on the appeal because he had not been officially informed that it had been filed.

Wright, his Portuguese wife and their two grown children were jubilant when a Portuguese judge on Nov. 17 decided against extradition. The judge ruled that Wright had become a Portuguese citizen and that the statute of limitations on his 15- to 30-year sentence for a robbery-murder in New Jersey had expired, Ferreira said at the time.

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.

Authorities say Wright and three associates had already committed multiple armed robberies on Nov. 23, 1962, when Walter Patterson, a decorated World War II veteran and father of two, was shot dead in his gas station in Wall, New Jersey.

But Wright insisted after his extradition was denied that he never fired a shot in the holdup and pleaded "no defense" to the murder charge because his lawyer advised it avoid a life sentence or the death penalty.

Wright also admitted the plane hijacking and said he committed it as a militant member of the Black Liberation Army "to fight for black rights...to support the hopes of black people" ? but is now a changed man.

Wright was captured in September in the seaside village near Lisbon where he has lived since 1993 and jailed for about two weeks until a judge released him under house arrest. He also lived in France and in the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau during his time as a fugitive.

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Clendenning reported from Madrid.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-11-29-EU-Hijacker-Fugitive/id-3d820b4624e64f8f9bde1efcd2209786

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