U.S. Deports Gold Heist Suspect to Britain
An Englishman wanted by Scotland Yard for questioning in Britain’s biggest gold heist was deported to London on Wednesday after losing a seven-month legal battle to stay out of his homeland.
John Robert Fleming had been fighting to go to a third country since Costa Rican officials forced him aboard a plane bound for Miami in August.
He lost his final legal fight Wednesday night, moments before a plane he was on was due to take off for London, when the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta rejected a last-minute appeal to stay his deportation.
Earlier Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp in Miami ruled that U.S. immigration officials could legally expel Fleming.
Fleming has been sought for questioning in a $38.7-million Brinks gold robbery at London’s Heathrow Airport on Nov. 26, 1983, but British authorities have filed no criminal charges against him.
Aliens normally cannot be extradited without formal charges. But the U.S. government on Wednesday won its argument that Fleming was an undesirable who had been given enough time to find a third county to admit him.
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