BORDEAUX, France - A French court today rejected a U.S. request to extradite a former hippie guru and ordered the release of the man American authorities want imprisoned for the 1977 murder of his girlfriend.

The Court of Appeals in the southwestern city of Bordeaux rejected the extradition after postponing the decision three times, and granted Ira Einhorn his freedom. He was to be freed later in the day after returning to the Gradignan prison for his official release.

``Thank you,'' Einhorn told presiding Judge Claude Arrighi.

The court's chief prosecutor told The Associated Press just after the hearing that he would examine the possible appeal of the rejection. U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment.

U.S. authorities wanted Einhorn to return to serve a life sentence following his 1993 conviction in absentia for murdering his girlfriend.

French law calls for a retrial for any person convicted in absentia. France also has abolished capital punishment, and French authorities had sought guarantees that U.S. prosecutors would not seek the death penalty in the event of a retrial.

Einhorn had been convicted by a court in the state of Pennsylvania, which does not provide for a new trial in case of a conviction in absentia.

``The United States has learned today to its distress that it still has lessons to learn from old Europe in matters of human rights,'' said Dominique Delthil, one of Einhorn's French lawyers.

U.S. authorities had wanted Einhorn returned to America to serve a life sentence following his 1993 conviction in absentia for killing girlfriend Holly Maddux of Tyler, Texas, and stuffing her body in a steamer trunk.

French police said this summer that the 57-year-old former anti-war activist, futurist and adviser to Philadelphia's rich and powerful had been living in France after borrowing the name of a friend who was a London publisher.

The French court had postponed the extradition decision three times, saying it needed more documents to make its decision.