Great Train fugitive asks to come home
One of Britain's most notorious fugitives wants to come home. Ronnie Biggs has been on the run for 35 years after being part of the gang that staged the Great Train Robbery.
In 1963, the gang ambushed the night train from Glasgow to London in a daring raid that netted them an amount equivalent to $100 million by today's standards.Biggs was sent to prison for the crime, but escaped after serving 15 months. He travelled under an alias to Australia, Argentina and Bolivia before surfacing in Brazil in 1970.
By that time he had married a Brazilian woman, and they had a son, which meant he could not be extradited.
Britain's latest effort to have him sent home was rejected by a Brazilian court in 1997.
Rarely out of the limelight, Biggs has appeared in films, has his own Web site and most recently helped launch a lingerie line.
According to the newspaper that broke the story, The Sun, Biggs wants to come home for medical treatment. The 71-year old is said to have suffered three strokes.
"I am a sick man,'' Biggs told The Sun in an interview conducted on paper through his son Michael, 26. "My last wish is to walk into a Margate pub as an Englishman and buy a pint of bitter. I hope I live long enough to be able to do that.''
British authorities say he'll have do that in prison. The government says the "usual procedures" will apply. Biggs still has 28 years left in his sentence.