LISBON, Portugal — Portugal’s Supreme Court has refused a request from the U.S. to extradite American fugitive George Wright, his lawyer said Thursday.
Wright’s lawyer, Manuel Luis Ferreira, said the court rejected an appeal by the U.S. against a lower court’s decision that denied extradition a month ago. The U.S. can now appeal to Portugal’s Constitutional Court.
Wright was captured in Portugal after four decades on the run. The lower court judge had ruled that Wright, 68, had become a Portuguese citizen and that the statute of limitations on his 15- to 30-year sentence for a robbery-murder in New Jersey had expired, according to Ferreira.
Wright spent seven years in a U.S. prison for murder before breaking out in 1970. He and others then hijacked a plane in 1972 from the U.S. to Algeria along with other Black Liberation Army militants.
