Former SLA Member to Face Murder Charges

Associated Press/December 19, 2002

San Francisco -- A former Symbionese Liberation Army member wanted in a deadly 1975 bank robbery was returned Thursday to California after more than two decades in hiding.

James Kilgore arrived from South Africa, where he was captured last month, under the escort of U.S. marshals. The 55-year-old former fugitive was expected to make an initial court appearance Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The fugitive, who worked as a University of Capetown professor under the name of Charles William Pape, faces a state murder charge for the 1975 SLA bank robbery that resulted in the shotgun slaying of a customer. He also faces federal charges of possessing a pipe bomb.

South African authorities arrested Kilgore one day after four other members of the 1970s radical group pleaded guilty to killing 42-year-old Myrna Opsahl, a housewife who was depositing a church collection.

Before his arrest, Kilgore had been negotiating through a New York attorney to receive a similar sentence in exchange for his surrender.