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<font size=4 color="#FF0000"><b><i>2 mainstream stories follow<br><br>
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</i></font><h1><b>Last SLA Inmate Cleared for Parole in
Illinois</b></h1><font size=3>By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS<br>
<a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gn6PBzBM-9bycwx1yeJe3BWxWEAAD97ROG9G0" eudora="autourl">
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gn6PBzBM-9bycwx1yeJe3BWxWEAAD97ROG9G0<br>
</a><b>Filed at 9:41 p.m. ET<br><br>
</b>SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- The last imprisoned member of the
1970s-era
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/symbionese_liberation_army/index.html?inline=nyt-org">
Symbionese Liberation Army</a> has been cleared to serve his parole in
Illinois after his release next month from a California prison,
corrections officials said Tuesday.<br><br>
James Kilgore, 61, is completing a six-year sentence at High Desert State
Prison in Susanville for his role in the murder of Myrna Opsahl, a mother
of four who was killed during a 1975 bank robbery in Carmichael, a
Sacramento suburb.<br><br>
California corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said Illinois
authorities have agreed to supervise Kilgore for a year. Federal
authorities have approved his transfer to Illinois, where he will be
supervised as part of a federal term he completed after being convicted
of charges related to his years with the SLA and fleeing the
country.<br><br>
Another SLA fugitive,
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/sara_jane_olson/index.html?inline=nyt-per">
Sara Jane Olson</a>, was released from prison last month and allowed to
return to her home in St. Paul, Minn.<br><br>
The Symbionese Liberation Army was a band of radicals from mostly
middle-class backgrounds that sought to foment revolution and overthrow
the government. Best known for the 1974 kidnapping of newspaper heiress
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/patricia_hearst/index.html?inline=nyt-per">
Patricia Hearst</a>, it claimed responsibility for assassinating Oakland
Schools Superintendent Marcus Foster and was involved in a shootout with
Los Angeles police officers that killed five SLA members.<br><br>
Kilgore's wife moved to Illinois after her husband was arrested in 2002
in South Africa after nearly three decades on the run. She teaches at the
<a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_illinois/index.html?inline=nyt-org">
University of Illinois</a> in Champaign.<br><br>
While on the lam, Kilgore became a University of Cape Town professor
under the alias of Charles William Pape.<br><br>
He served his state prison term after completing a 4 1/2-year federal
prison sentence for using a deceased baby's birth certificate to obtain a
passport and for possession of a pipe bomb that federal authorities said
they found in his Daly City apartment in 1975.<br><br>
The Los Angeles City Council approved a resolution Tuesday opposing
Kilgore's out-of-state transfer.<br><br>
The Los Angeles Police Protective League and the National Association of
Police Organizations, which objected to the transfer, lobbied California
and Illinois officials to deny his request.<br><br>
''This is where he committed his crimes,'' the league's president, Paul
Weber, said in a statement. ''Kilgore would be better monitored in
California during his parole because the state has a stronger interest in
the case.''<br><br>
Kilgore's attorney, Louis Freeman, did not immediately return a phone
message Tuesday.<br>
*************************************************<br>
</font><h1><font size=4><b>
<a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/04/sla-parolee-kilgore.html">
Out-of-state parole approved for last of imprisoned SLA
members</a></b></font></h1><font size=3>
<a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/04/sla-parolee-kilgore.html" eudora="autourl">
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/04/sla-parolee-kilgore.html</a>
<br><br>
5:09 PM | April 28, 2009<br><br>
The last remaining member of the former Symbionese Liberation Army still
in prison has been cleared to serve
<a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/03/sla-redux.html">
supervised parole</a> in Illinois beginning next month, when he is
scheduled to be released from custody, officials said Tuesday.<br><br>
James Kilgore, 61, was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading
guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Myrna Opsahl during the
April 21, 1975, robbery of Crocker National Bank in Carmichael,
Calif.<br><br>
Kilgore had asked officials at the California Department of Corrections
and Rehabilitation to allow him supervised parole in Illinois after his
scheduled release next month from High Desert State Prison in Susanville.
<br><br>
Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said Tuesday that Kilgore's
request has been approved by California, Illinois and the federal
government in connection with the bank robbery and a federal conviction
on explosives charges.<br><br>
<a name="more"></a>"He has to comply with conditions of three
different entities," Thornton said. <br>
<br>
The decision to grant supervised parole to the former SLA member has
again drawn fire from the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union
representing 9,800 Los Angeles police officers. The organization was
highly
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-olson10-2009mar10,0,2190172.story">
critical</a>of the decision to release former SLA member Sara Jane Olson,
who is now serving
<a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sara-jane-olson18-2009mar18,0,6830812.story">
supervised parole in Minnesota</a>. <br><br>
"Kilgore would be better monitored in California during his parole
because the state has a stronger interest in the case," said Paul M.
Weber, president of the L.A. police union.<br><br>
The former honors student and UC Santa Barbara graduate participated in
the SLA's radical activities in the 1970s and was one of the nation's
most wanted fugitives for a quarter-century before he was arrested in
Cape Town, South Africa.<br><br>
Similar to Olson, who refashioned herself from radical Katherine Soliah
into a Midwestern soccer mom, Kilgore became a university professor under
an assumed name, Charles William Pape.<br><br>
He eventually was sentenced to six years in prison. During his stint
behind bars, he was transferred to federal custody and served time for
federal explosives and passport fraud convictions.<br><br>
--Andrew Blankstein<br><br>
<br><br>
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