![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() |
![]() |
![]() Thursday, October 30, 1997 Published at 02:35 GMT ![]() ![]() ![]() UK ![]() Britain asks for extradition of Ronnie Biggs Ronnie Biggs: Prepared to return
The British Government has formally asked Brazil to extradite the Great Train Robber, Ronnie Biggs.
The request was passed to the Brazilian Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Brasilia by the British embassy.
It comes more than two months after Britain and Brazil ratified an extradition treaty. It was widely predicted that the 68 year old robber would be the main target of the treaty.
Biggs was part of a 15-strong gang who got away with more than £2.5m after robbing a mail train in 1963. 11 men were eventually jailed for the crime. Biggs received the heaviest sentences because the judge decided he was the brains behind the crime.
He has escaped two previous attempts to bring him home, the first in 1974 when a Scotland Yard detective, Jack Slipper, went to Brazil to try and extradite him. But he was able to stay because his girlfriend was pregnant with their son.
Later in 1981 Biggs was kidnapped and smuggled to Barbados, but succeeded in an appeal against extradition.
In recent years though, Biggs has let it be known that he will not fight extradition to Britain.
But surprisingly Jack Slipper does not feel his return will do much good. "Here we've got a man who escaped from prison in 1965 ... if he isn't finished with crime now I don't know what we're going to achieve, we're certainly not going to put him on the straight and narrow" he told BBC News.
"No I don't think I would run, because number one I can't afford to. I don't have a current passport to run to another country, and I don't think there would be much future in trying to hide out in the boondocks in Brazil somewhere," he said.
"So in the event of the Brazilian government deciding I should go back, then go back I shall."
|
![]() |
![]() |
|