Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive appears in court

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- James Kilgore, one of the FBI's most wanted fugitives, smiled and gave a thumbs-up sign to supporters Monday at a South African court hearing on plans to extradite him to the United States.

The judge agreed to postpone the case until Friday.

Kilgore, a former member of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army, was accused of a 1975 bank robbery and murder in California.

The SLA is best known for kidnapping newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. In her 1982 book "Every Secret Thing," Hearst called Kilgore an intellectual and voice of reason in those frantic days.

South African police arrested him Friday at his home in a Cape Town suburb, where he had been living under the name Charles William Pape. He had been working as a researcher since 1998 at the University of Cape Town.

As Kilgore walked into court Monday, dozens of his friends and colleagues broke into applause. He acknowledged them with a broad smile and the thumbs-up sign.

"He is well. He's healthy. He's strong and holding up," Kilgore's lawyer, Mike Evans, told reporters later.

Evans said Kilgore was waiting for a formal extradition request from the U.S. government before deciding whether to oppose it or not.