Rio De Janeiro - Judicial officials in Brazil said yesterday that "Great Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs was expected to fight an extradition request filed by the British government.
"Biggs's attorney filed a writ of habeas corpus last August," in response to press reports that London sought his extradition, according to an official with Brazil's Supreme Court.
Officials with the British Home Office said they filed an extradition request to the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday.
Brazilian authorities, however, said yesterday that "Biggs's extradition request . . . hasn't arrived yet." Britain's first request to extradite Biggs was turned down last August because the two countries did not then have an extradition agreement. Such an agreement went into effect on August 13th last.
Biggs (68), the most notorious fugitive from British justice, escaped from London's Wandsworth Prison in 1965 just 15 months after being consigned there. He was serving a 30-year sentence for his part in stealing £2.6 million from a Glasgow-toLondon mail train in August 1963