Wanted Convicted Killer Arrested in Portugal
COSTELLO: It's 31 minutes past the hour. Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. Top stories for you now. Sources inside the Pentagon now reacting to a threat from Iran to move their Navy ships near the U.S. east coast. Told our Barbara Starr, the Pentagon, that is, it's fine as long as Iran stays in international waters. But the Pentagon also announced Iran has the know how to play it off.</s>VELSHI: Chris Christie playing it coy about a possible run for president. The New Jersey governor delivered a foreign policy speech at the Reagan library in California last night. Many Republicans were hoping he might have a big announcement.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do it for my daughter, do it for our grandchildren, do it for our sons. Please, sir, don't -- we need you. Your country needs you to run for president.</s>GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R) NEW JERSEY: It's extraordinarily appreciated. But that is also not a reason for me to do it. That reason has to reside inside me.</s>VELSHI: Jurors this morning will hear from Michael Jackson's personal assistant about the chaotic moments after Dr. Conrad Murray realized Jackson stopped breathing. Opening day testimony was shocking yesterday. Jurors heard an audio recording of a barely coherent Jackson just weeks before his death, and they saw a picture of him dead on a hospital gurney. Prosecutors blame Murray for Jackson's death, claiming he repeatedly gave him the dangerous drug Propofol as a sleep aid. The defense claims Murray was trying to wean him of the drug and they say Jackson gave himself a fatal overdose.</s>COSTELLO: George Wright, a convicted killer and airline hijacker who once forced to deliver ransom money in only their bathing suits, was arrested in Portugal. Deb Feyerick joins us now with how police got their big break.</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. You know, U.S. marshals have been tracking him for about a decade, and they finally got a positive hit. Along with Portuguese authorities they arrested George Wright in Portugal about an hour from Lisbon just on the coast. He was living there under an assumed name. The FBI agent in charge said, quote, "Even after 40 years the commitment of law enforcement is unwavering." Now, the story is remarkable in the early '60s Wright was convicted of killing a World War II veteran during a gas robbery. He escaped a New Jersey prison in the warden's car and he made his way to Detroit where he joined up with the Black Liberation Army. Then in 1972, Wright along with four other Liberation members hijacked a Miami-bound Delta flight out of Detroit. He was dressed as a priest and he smuggled a gun onboard in a hollowed out bible. Once the plane landed Wright and the other hijackers demand $1 million in cash for the release of some 80 passengers. And FBI agents were told to wear bathing suits and deliver the money on to the tarmac. This was a way of ensuring that they weren't carrying any guns. The hijackers kept the crew onboard and forced the pilots to fly to Boston. They refueled, took on another pilot, and then they flew across the Atlantic to Algeria where they asked for asylum. The government there briefly detained and then released them. The $1 million, most asked in ransom money, was returned along with the plane, but the other hijackers, ultimately, about four years later were arrested. Wright remained on the run. He is now fighting extradition and he is expected to be in court in about two weeks.</s>COSTELLO: So we don't know what he was doing in Portugal for all this time.</s>FEYERICK: No. It is very interesting. There are ways of finding people and one of them is simply waiting. That may sound kind of simplistic, yet every now and again what happens is these people who have been gone for so long feel the need to connect with family. And that's one way that people just wait and watch and listen. So -- but it takes time and it takes patience. They have been working on this since 2002.</s>VELSHI: Does the U.S. have an extradition agreement with Portugal? Is he likely to be extradited?</s>FEYERICK: They do. It is unclear, though, at this particular point. Depends on how much he fights. It could be some time before he arrives back on the United States soil. He may just give up because he's still facing the murder charges. It was a sentence up to 30 years and then the hijacking charges and the other people on the plane did serve time for air piracy. He's facing both of those right now. So it could be a long time.</s>COSTELLO: Thank you, Deb. He's an actor, a father, and now Taye Diggs can add children's book author to his resume. Taye Diggs here live in our studios to talk about "Chocolate Me." It's 35 minutes past.