Extradition

US officials have rejected a request to seek the extradition of actor Randy Quaid and his wife from Canada to face felony vandalism charges, according to a California prosecutor. Senior Deputy District Attorney Lee Carter said the US State Department notified him last week that it would not pursue extradition. The Quaids were arrested in September and accused of causing more than $5,000 in damage to a home they once owned. They were no-shows at several court hearings and were arrested in Vancouver, where the actor sought asylum from a group he dubbed "Hollywood star-whackers.

Federal officials say a U.S.-born drug cartel lieutenant who was arrested in Mexico has been successfully extradited to the United States to face federal racketeering and drug charges. U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said Wednesday that Armando Villareal Heredia is the lead defendant in a 43-defendant prosecution against the Fernando Sanchez-Arellano Organization, a drug cartel. Also known as Gordo Villareal, he was arrested by Mexican law enforcement July 9, 2011, at the request of U.S. officials.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Christopher “Dudus’’ Coke was born into gang royalty, running a smuggling operation that supplied drugs up and down the US East Coast. He used the proceeds to cast himself as a Jamaican Robin Hood, and his power grew to rival that of the prime minister. That reign was at an end yesterday, with Coke behind bars at a secret location and facing almost certain extradition to the United States. The threat of extradition sparked a week of violence in May that killed 76 people, but his capture after a monthlong manhunt was surprisingly peaceful: He was arrested at a police...

A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled that the German mother of a serial arson suspect should be extradited from the United States to face numerous fraud charges. The U.S. attorney's office says, however, that Thursday's ruling does not mean that Dorothee Burkhart will be immediately returned to Germany. Dorothee Burkhart's 24-year-old son, Harry Burkhart, is charged with 100 arson-related counts involving 49 fires in Hollywood, West Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley over New Year's weekend.

MIAMI -- Colombian drug kingpin Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela was flown to the United States early yesterday aboard a US government plane, becoming the most powerful Colombian trafficker ever extradited to face US justice. Rodriguez Orejuela faces trial in federal courts in Miami and New York for plots to smuggle cocaine and launder money. He arrived before dawn and was sent to a downtown jail, across the street from a courthouse where he was scheduled to make his initial appearance tomorrow, said a Drug Enforcement Administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- A court yesterday ordered the extradition of suspected eco-terrorist Tre Arrow, one of the FBI's most-wanted fugitives, to face firebombing charges in the United States. Arrow, born Michael Scarpitti, is accused of participating in the 2001 firebombing of logging and cement trucks in Oregon. The FBI contends he is associated with the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a group that has claimed responsibility for dozens of acts of destruction over the past few years.

LONDON - Britain's Supreme Court said yesterday that it had agreed to hear WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's appeal against extradition to Sweden over sex crimes allegations. The court said a panel of three judges had considered a written submission and granted a two-day appeal beginning on Feb. 1, meaning there is no prospect of Assange being sent to Stockholm until at least next year. In a statement, the court said it had "decided that seven justices will hear the appeal given the great public importance of the issue raised, which is whether a prosecutor is a judicial...

A 27-year-old Massachusetts man waived a hearing yesterday and will return to Maine, where he will be charged with murder in the stabbing death of an 81-year-old woman in her apartment in Farmington in June. Juan Contreras of Waltham was arrested at his home at about 6:45 p.m. Thursday on a fugitive-from-justice charge. Maine State Police detectives planned to bring him to Maine, following his arraignment in Waltham District Court yesterday. (AP)

FRANKFURT -- Germany's supreme court said yesterday it has approved the extradition of two Yemenis to the United States, where they are wanted on charges of supporting Al Qaeda. The Federal Constitutional Court said Sheik Ali Hassan al-Moayad and his alleged assistant, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, could expect a fair trial in the United States, rejecting the complaints they filed against lower-court decisions backing extradition. The final decision on extradition lies with the German government.

LONDON - Britain's Home Office yesterday approved the extradition of an Islamic cleric who is accused of trying to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon, a spokesman said. Abu Hamza al-Masri once led London's Finsbury Park Mosque, which was attended by Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid. One top British counterterrorism official described the mosque as a "honeypot for extremists. " The Egyptian-born Masri was arrested on a US extradition warrant in 2004; the process was put on hold while he stood trial in Britain and appealed his...

A new Colombian TV series about the arch-criminal Pablo Escobar has a key ingredient that is apt to ensure an unsympathetic portrait of the infamous cocaine kingpin. Two of the scriptwriters for "El Patron del Mal," or "The Boss of Bad," which was previewed for the press Tuesday, are children of victims of the late trafficker who terrorized this South American nation. One is a son of the crusading newspaper editor, Guillermo Cano, who was slain by Escobar's men, and the other is the daughter of a woman they held hostage for seven months.

BEIJING - Lai Changxing, an illiterate peasant-turned-billionaire whose legacy of bribery, smuggling, and monumental profligacy came to personify the excesses of the economic reform era, was given a life sentence on Friday for his role in what the government has described as modern China's biggest corruption scandal, according to the state news media. At his peak, Lai drove a bulletproof Mercedes, distributed wads of cash to the poor, and had in his thrall hundreds of officials in Xiamen, the special economic zone in Fujian, the coastal province where he made his...

Ecuador's ambassador to the United States this week rejected US Senator John F. Kerry's request to extradite a man accused of a Brockton double murder, and urged Kerry to support Ecuador's decision to prosecute him there, according to a letter released to the media today. Ambassador Nathalie Cely said in a letter to Kerry that Ecuador had worked "tirelessly" to obtain evidence from Massachusetts prosecutors needed to keep Luis Guaman in prison in Ecuador, where the constitution bars extradition of Ecuadoran...

California's highest court has cleared the way for a convicted serial killer to be brought to New York to face charges in two 1970s killings. It wasn't clear Thursday when Rodney Alcala, who's awaiting execution in California for five 1970s stranglings, might be brought to a Manhattan court, though the arrangements could take a few weeks. The California Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected his bid to block extradition, according to court records. A former amateur photographer and TV dating-show contestant who represented himself at his latest trial, the...

El Salvador's government says it will not grant Spain's request to extradite 13 former military officers indicted in the 1989 slayings of six Jesuit priests and two other people. The country's Supreme Court says nine of its 15 magistrates have ruled against the Spanish request to try a total of 15 former officers for the killings during the Central American country's 1980-1992 civil war. While most of the 15 defendants are still in El Salvador, two now live in the United States.

Confessed murderer Joran van der Sloot told a judge on Tuesday that he will fight extradition from Peru to the United States, where he faces extortion and wire fraud charges in connection with the disappearance of American Natalee Holloway, his lawyer said. Van der Sloot remains the prime suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of Holloway in Aruba. He faces an indictment in the U.S. for allegedly accepting $25,000 in early 2010 in exchange for an unfulfilled promise to lead her mother's lawyer to the body.

MORENCI, Mich. — A father charged with kidnapping his three missing sons fought extradition from Ohio to Michigan yesterday as an army of volunteers set off to trudge through fields and woodlands to search for the boys, who have not been seen since Thanksgiving. John Skelton, an unemployed long-haul truck driver, sat through the court hearing in Toledo, Ohio, in a wheelchair, answering the judge’s questions in a whisper. His attorney told the judge his client would fight his return to Michigan.

PANAMA CITY, Panama -- Panamanian police have captured a top Colombian drug kingpin believed responsible for "huge volumes" of narcotics entering the United States, and Colombian officials said yesterday they will seek his extradition. Panamanian officials early Saturday reported the capture of Arcangel de Jesus Henao Montoya in a remote part of southern Panama. Colombia's attorney general said he will seek the extradition of Henao Montoya, believed to be a top leader of one of Colombia's most powerful cartels, the Norte de Valle.

CUENCA, Ecuador - Ecuadoran officials are pressing forward Monday with the trial of a Massachusetts fugitive accused of a double murder in Brockton, even as Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz continues to fight for his extradition to the United States. The trial comes nearly a year after a Plymouth County grand jury indicted Luis Guaman on two counts of first-degree murder in the savage beating deaths of his housemates, Maria Avelina Palaguachi and her 2-year-old son, Brian, in February 2011.