Biggs fights extradition

Press, 26 March 1981, Page 1

Biggs fights extradition

NZPA London' Lawyers representing Ronald Biggs, one of the Great Train Robbers yesterday made the- first moves in the legal battle to prevent him '• being extradited from Barbados to .Britain to serve the 28 remaining years of his jail sentence.-. The lawyers were to filefor: a writ of habeas .corpus in a court at Bridgetown,.Barbados.’ ri They were-, seeking' a hearing today, at Whichthey would- oppose any . request for the extradition of Biggs,. according to Press Association reports. Biggs, who took part in a 1963 raid on a British mail train that netted more than $6.48 million and later escaped from jail in London, was living in Brazil until last week’s kidnap. Yesterday, the police had still not confirmed that the man they are holding in jail after his dramatic •. arrival on a

' "acht from Brazil was • -Ronald Biggs. The police . sa.u tnat they were holding the man under that name, because it was the name He had given them. -■ They were holding him because he lacked a passport pending positive identification as the Great Train Robber. . 1 The British High Com- . missidner in Barbados, Mr Stanley Arthur, said that extradition proceedings .would start as soon as Biggs was positively identified. A Press Association report from- the Brazilian captial of . Brasilia said that officials had an- - nounced the end of the Brazilian Government’s involvement with the Biggs affair. A Foreign Ministry snokesman, Mr Bernado Pericas, was quoted as . saying: “Biggs, while a- ■ permanent resident of Brazil, is a British citizen and is not entitled to.-Brazilian

protection once he is out of the country.” He said Biggs, who has a Brazilian wife, would not . be. penalised if he could prove he left the country against his will, and • cculd still legally return. As Ronald Biggs started the latest stage in his-bi-zarre 1-6-year battle to stay out of prison, the man behind the plot to kidnap him announced: “The job has now been done.” Mr John Miller, when asked the reason for the kidnap, told an interviewer in Barbados: “It was purely and simply to bring him into the country which would then be sympathetic to Britain’s pleas for extradition. “There has been no intention to harm him ever,” Mr Miller who was due to appear at a London court on an. assault charge said: “We. have been paid

already. The job has been done and all I want is to get my men out of this Barbadian jail and get them all home. As far as we are concerned that is the end of the-story.” The kidnap, by a group including former members of the crack Special Air Service, matched the drama of Biggs’s escape from Wandsworth Prison and his subsequent life on the run. The kidnap plot was revealed, as an international intrigue. It involved knock-out gas for the kidnap from a Rio restaurant, bundling Biggs into a canvas bag as he was driven away from the restaurant in a van, a flight to the north Brazilian coast in a light aircraft, and the final yacht voyage. It also involved secret meetings in a humble London pub, and cash aid from the British heir to a carpet fortune, Patrick Anderson, aged 29.