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Last Member of SLA Sentenced to Jail

James Kilgore, the last fugitive member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the group responsible for kidnapping and then converting Patty Hearst in the 19790's, has been sentenced to jail for his participation in some of the group's activities:

The last fugitive member of the Symbionese Liberation Army to be brought to justice was sentenced Monday to 4 1/2 years in prison for passport fraud and possession of a pipe bomb. James Kilgore, 56, belonged to the 1970s radical group that kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst. He was on the lam for more than two decades before he was captured in 2002 in South Africa, where he was working as a professor under an assumed name.

Kilgore is expected to be sentenced next month to an additional six years in prison after pleading guilty last year to murder charges in the shotgun slaying of a bank customer during a 1975 SLA holdup. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel sent Kilgore to prison for possession of a bomb found in his apartment in 1975, and for using the birth certificate of a dead baby to obtain a passport.

Kilgore apologized for his acts and said the SLA's violent protests against the Vietnam War were "misguided and misdirected."

More background here and here.

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    by jbindc on Mon May 11, 2009 at 09:26:12 AM EST
    He only got 6 years for killing someone. Too bad the bank customer didn't get a 6 year sentence.