Portugal- Lisbon court places US fugitive under house arrest

LISBON, Portugal— A US  captured fugitive George Wright, leaves jail to stay at his Portuguese home while he fights extradition to the U.S., his lawyer said Friday. According to his lawyer, Manuel Luis Ferreira, Wright became Portuguese citizen through marriage to  Maria do Rosario Valente 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. Wright's new identity from Guinea-Bissau was granted after the country gave him political asylum in the 1980s, and that was accepted by Portugal.

Wright spent seven years in a U.S. prison for a 1962 murder of gas station owner Walter Patterson, a decorated World War II veteran shot during a robbery at his business in Wall, New Jersey, before escaping in 1970, and has been on the run for 41 years. He was arrested in Portugal almost three weeks ago, after authorities matched his fingerprint on a Portuguese identity card to one in the United States. Wright had been held in a Lisbon jail since he was caught.

A judge's decision  released Wright from custody on condition that he remains at his house near Lisbon and wears an electronic tag that monitors his movements, lawyer Manuel Luis Ferreira said.
Portuguese broadcaster S.I.C. showed Wright arriving at his home, in a hamlet near a stunning beach about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Lisbon, Portugal's capital, on Friday evening. Wright, his head shaved and wearing glasses, was escorted into the house by two police officers. He kissed his Portuguese wife, Maria do Rosario Valente, who was waiting at the front door before going inside.

In comments to reporters outside the house, Ferreira said his client was happy to be home."He wants to say ... that he doesn't intend to run away. He just wants to spend his life here with his family," Ferreira said.
Under Portuguese law, court proceedings and police investigations are confidential. "He can't leave the house and he can't speak about the case to anyone," Ferreira told The Associated Press.

The U.S. is trying to extradite him to serve the rest of his 15- to 30-year sentence.

Though Wright served eight of his 15- to 30-year sentence for the murder, it was his daring hijacking that made put his name beside D.B. Cooper, as one of the few criminals with the nerve to steal a plane and actually get away with it.

Wright and three other men escaped from the Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, New Jersey, on Aug. 19, 1970 and made their getaway after boldly stealing the warden’s car.

For the next two years Wright got affiliated with an underground militant group, the Black Liberation Army, and lived in a “communal family” with several of its members in Detroit.

In 1972, Wright — dressed as a priest and using an alias — hid a gun in a hollowed-out Bible and hijacked a Delta flight from Detroit to Miami with four other Black Liberation Army members.
The hijackers demand $1 million in exchange for the 90 passengers, which they actually got it -- the most ever paid for the release of airplane hostages-- hand delivered by FBI agents who followed instructions to wear
swimming trunks to keep them from concealing weapons.

Wright and his partners held on to the flight crew, forcing them to refuel in Boston before escaping to Algeria, where Algerian officials seized the plane and the money but let the hijackers go.

Ferreira contends that 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.

The judge overseeing the case may call witnesses before announcing his decision on extradition in coming weeks. That decision can be appealed to higher courts, and the entire process could take months or longer.


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