George Wright fights extradition

6 October 2011 Last updated at 21:15 George Wright was originally jailed for a murder in 1962 George Wright, the fugitive captured by the FBI after more than 40 years on the run, has taken legal action in Portugal to fight a US extradition order.

He escaped from a New Jersey prison in 1970 and hijacked a US airliner two years later while dressed as a priest.

His lawyer says Wright, 68, should serve any prison time in Portugal, where he is now a citizen and where his wife and two grown children live.

The FBI tracked him down last month not far from the capital, Lisbon.

'Very afraid'

"I have no doubt that if he goes back [to the US] he will die. He is very afraid," Wright's lawyer, Manuel Luis Ferreira, told Reuters news agency, adding that his client was in poor health.

"He believes they think that he tried to humiliate them, that they'll make an example out of him... he believes that he will be killed in prison."

The judge will ask the US to submit its counter-arguments and may call witnesses to testify before ruling on the convicted killer's case.

The US wants him extradited to serve the remainder of his 15- to 30-year sentence for the 1962 murder of a petrol station owner in New Jersey.

Wright became a Portuguese citizen, taking another name

Wright served seven years in prison before breaking out with three other inmates.

Then aged 29, and as part of the militant Black Liberation Army group, he hijacked a US plane to Algeria in 1972, the FBI says.

Wright is said to have produced a gun from a hollowed-out Bible and held it to a flight attendant's head.

At Miami airport, he and his accomplices demanded a $1m ransom.

The passengers were freed after the money was delivered by FBI agents forced to wear only swimsuits so the gang could see they were unarmed.

While the other hijackers were later caught, Wright remained at large for more than four decades - until his arrest in rural Portugal last month.

In 1991, after marrying a Portuguese woman, Wright became a Portuguese citizen and took the name Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos.

This new identity was given to him by Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony in West Africa, but was recognised by Portugal when Wright was granted political asylum there in the 1980s.

Lawyers says Assange is fighting extradition in part because Swedish rape trials are customarily held in secret

Lawyers says Assange is fighting extradition in part because Swedish rape trials are customarily held in secret

THE lawyer for Julian Assange argued yesterday the embattled WikiLeaks founder would face a secret trial that would violate international standards of fairness if sent to Sweden to face allegations of sexual assault.

The leader of the secret-spilling website is fighting extradition in part because Swedish rape trials are customarily held in secret, Geoffrey Robertson said at the start of a two- day extradition hearing. Closed-door hearings would be "a flagrant denial of justice … blatantly unfair, not only by British standards but by European standards and indeed by international standards", he said.

Mr Assange is accused of sexual misconduct by two women he met during a visit to Stockholm last year. Mr Assange denies wrongdoing.

Defence lawyers argue he should not be extradited because he has not been charged with a crime, because of flaws in the Swedish prosecutors’ case — and because a ticket to Sweden could land him in Guantanamo Bay or on US death row.

The British lawyer representing Sweden, Clare Montgomery, opened by dismissing several key planks of the defence. She said Marianne Ny, the Swedish prosecutor who is seeking his extradition, did have the power to request the arrest warrant, dismissing defence claims that she is not authorised to do so. She said the rape allegation was an extraditable offence even under Sweden’s broad definition of the crime.

Mr Assange’s lawyers say he cannot be extradited because he has not been charged with a crime in Sweden and is wanted only for questioning — and that the allegation is not rape as understood under European and English law. Mr Robertson said Mr Assange faced an allegation known in Swedish as "minor rape". "That is a contradiction in terms," he said.

Mr Robertson said Mr Assange had had consensual sex with his two accusers. Ms Montgomery contested this, saying "the Swedish offence of rape contains the core element of rape … the deliberate violation of a woman’s sexual integrity through penetration".

US officials are trying to build a criminal case against WikiLeaks, which has angered Washington by publishing a trove of leaked diplomatic cables and military files. Mr Assange’s lawyers say the Swedish prosecution is linked to the leaks and is politically motivated.

Preliminary defence arguments released by Mr Assange’s legal team claim "there is a real risk that, if extradited to Sweden, the US will seek his extradition and/or illegal rendition to the US, where there will be a real risk of him being detained at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere".

Many legal experts say the Guantanamo claims are fanciful, and Sweden strongly denies coming under American pressure.

Mr Assange is accused of sexual molestation and unlawful coercion against the second woman. The leaked documents show she accuses him of deliberately damaging a condom during consensual sex, which he denies. Sapa-AP

If extradited to Sweden, the US will seek his extradition, where there will be a risk of him being detained at Guantanamo Bay

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