James Kilgore, one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives, smiled and gave a thumbs-up sign to supporters Monday at a South African court hearing on plans to extradite him to the United States.
The judge agreed to postpone the case until Friday.
Kilgore, a former member of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army, was accused of a 1975 bank robbery and murder in California. The SLA was best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst.
South African police arrested him on Friday at his home in Claremont, where he had been living under the name Charles William Pape. He had been working as a researcher since 1998 at the University of Cape Town.
As Kilgore walked into court Monday, dozens of his friends and colleagues broke into applause. He acknowledged them with a broad smile and the thumbs-up sign.
Kilgore (55) then hugged his shaking wife, Theresa Anne Barnes, before taking his seat for the five-minute hearing.
”He is well. He’s healthy. He’s strong and holding up,” Kilgore’s lawyer, Mike Evans, told reporters later. Evans said Kilgore was waiting for a formal extradition request from the US government before deciding whether to oppose it or not.
”There have been negotiations with authorities in California, and we are waiting for developments in that regard. By Friday we will be in a better position to know,” he said.
Kilgore’s arrest came just one day after four of his former comrades pleaded guilty to the murder of Myrna Opsahl, who was depositing a church collection when she was killed by a shotgun blast during the 1975 holdup of the Crocker National Bank in suburban Sacramento, California.
Kilgore and his four SLA colleagues were charged in January with Opsahl’s murder. American law enforcement and defence attorneys had said Kilgore
had been communicating with authorities, seeking a plea deal similar to those the other defendants received.
Married with two children, Kilgore has worked at the University of Cape Town since 1998 as a senior researcher at the International Labor Resource and Information Group, which researched international and local labour issues.
Police believe Kilgore lived in Zimbabwe and then Johannesburg before moving to Cape Town. – Sapa-AP