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<h1><font size=4><b>Lisbon court denies US extradition request for
fugitive George Wright<br><br>
</b></font></h1><h3><font size=3><b>By Associated Press, Updated:
Thursday, November 17, 8:05 AM
</b></font></h3><font size=1><b>
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/report-lisbon-court-denies-us-extradition-request-for-fugitive-george-wright/2011/11/17/gIQAMuHWUN_story.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/report-lisbon-court-denies-us-extradition-request-for-fugitive-george-wright/2011/11/17/gIQAMuHWUN_story.html<br>
<br>
</a></b></font><font size=3>LISBON, Portugal A Lisbon court has denied
a U.S. request for the extradition of captured American fugitive George
Wright, his lawyer said Thursday.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Wright’s lawyer, Manuel Luis Ferreira, told The Associated Press by
telephone the court rejected the U.S. bid.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Wright has been under house arrest for the past four weeks at his home
near Lisbon, wearing an electronic tag that monitors his
movements.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Wright broke out of Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, New Jersey, on Aug.
19, 1970.<br><br>
In 1972, Wright dressed as a priest and using an alias hijacked a
Delta flight from Detroit to Miami along with others, police
say.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material
may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.<br><br>
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