LISBON, Portugal — The lawyer for a captured American fugitive said his client wants to serve the rest of his jail time in Portugal, but legal experts predicted Friday that U.S. prosecutors will “move heaven and earth” to get him back to the U.S. justice system.
Lawyer Manuel Luis Ferreira says George Wright, 68, deserves to serve the remainder of his 15- to 30-year New Jersey murder sentence in Portugal because he has lived in the country for decades and has a Portuguese wife and grown Portuguese children.
“If he has to serve, then he wants it to be here, which is his home,” Ferreira told Portugal’s TVI television.
U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney declined to comment Friday on the defense counsel’s arguments due to the pending extradition request against Wright.
American lawyers who are experts on extradition, however, said they expect an intense effort by U.S. officials to ensure Wright’s return after 41 years on the lam.
Justice Department lawyers “will move heaven and earth to get him back here, and I believe they will be successful,” said Philadelphia lawyer Norris Gelman. “If they have to do it through diplomacy, they will do it through diplomacy.”
Wright broke out of the Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, N.J., on Aug. 19, 1970, after serving more than seven years of his sentence for killing a man in a 1962 gas station robbery. He was also part of a Black Liberation Army group that hijacked a U.S. plane to Algeria in 1972.
Wright was captured in a seaside village near Lisbon on Monday after authorities matched his fingerprint on a Portuguese identity card to one in the United States. Until his arrest, Wright spent decades living with his Portuguese wife and children in the hamlet with a cobblestone street near a stunning beach.
After an odyssey that spanned three continents, Wright is being held in Lisbon, pending extradition hearings. He has asked to be set free, a request that is still pending.
