Portugal won’t extradite convicted killer to US

Wright escaped prison, hijacked jetliner in 1970s

November 18, 2011|By Raphael Minder, New York Times

George Wright, with wife Maria do Rosario Valente yesterday, was convicted… (PEDRO PINA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

MADRID - A Portuguese court decided yesterday to deny an American request to extradite the fugitive George Wright, decades after he fled in a hijacked jetliner.

Wright was convicted of murder in the early 1960s, but he escaped from prison in 1970 and hijacked a domestic Delta flight two years later, alongside four others, and took the plane to Algeria. He eventually settled down under a different identity in a village in Portugal, where he was arrested in September.

“This is just a fantastic decision,’’ said Wright’s lawyer, Manuel Luis Ferreira.

He said that he had not yet read the details of the ruling but had been informed that “all my main arguments were accepted,’’ including that Wright should not be extradited to the United States because he holds Portuguese nationality.

Ferreira also fought extradition for family reasons, so as to allow Wright to stay close to his wife and two children, who live in Portugal.

Ferreira said the US authorities could still appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Portugal.

During an interview last month while under house arrest, Wright explained that he had believed that, after four decades, the US authorities were no longer chasing him, but he added that, “knowing the Americans, I always feared that they had their antennas up.’’

Wright, now 68, was convicted of murder in New Jersey in connection with a robbery in 1962 in which Walter Patterson, a gas station owner, was killed.

Two years after escaping from prison, Wright and four others in Detroit hijacked a Miami-bound jetliner and demanded that it be flown to Algeria.

After the hijacking, Wright left Algeria for France.

His fellow hijackers were arrested there, but he managed to make his way to Portugal before moving to Guinea-Bissau, which eventually granted him political asylum.

He eventually returned to Portugal two decades ago, taking up odd jobs and leading a quiet family life in Casas Novas, a village about 30 miles from Lisbon.

Wright was fighting extradition under his assumed Portuguese identity, Jose Luis Jorge dos Santos.