The Philadelphia Inquirer International

Saturday, July 5, 1997

Einhorn vows to fight extradition
The U.S. government has yet to file papers for the fugitive's return from France.

By Christophe Hutteau
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BORDEAUX, France -- Fugitive American hippie Ira Einhorn intends to fight U.S. efforts to extradite him for the 1977 murder of his former girlfriend, his lawyer said yesterday. ``He is in fighting form and in no way demoralized,'' Einhorn's lawyer, Dominique Delthil, told the Associated Press.

Einhorn, 57, was arrested in mid-June at his home in southwestern France after 16 years on the run. A Philadelphia court convicted him in absentia in 1993 of killing Helen ``Holly'' Maddux in 1977. Her mummified remains were found in a steamer trunk in Einhorn's closet 18 months after she vanished.

The United States has not yet filed extradition papers in a French court. But Einhorn definitely will challenge any attempts to be returned to America, where he would have to start serving his life sentence, Delthil said.

Einhorn was caught in June after his Swedish girlfriend, Anika Flodin, had requested a driver's license. French police say she was required to ask for papers from Swedish authorities, who were tipped off by the FBI that she was living with Einhorn.

The 57-year-old former antiwar activist had arrived in the small town of Champagne-Mouton, in rural France about 240 miles south of Paris, in early 1993.

Philadelphia Online -- The Philadelphia Inquirer, International -- Copyright Saturday, July 5, 1997