Argentina to extradite German kidnapping suspect

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) -- The suspected brains behind the largest kidnapping payout in Germany's history, Thomas Drach, will be sent home to face justice after two years in custody in Argentina, the government said on Wednesday.

President Fernando de la Rua signed a decree authorizing Drach's extradition to Germany late on Tuesday, a Justice Ministry official told Reuters.

"I can confirm he signed the decree," said the official, without saying when the order would be carried out.

Drach was picked up by Interpol in a swank Buenos Aires hotel in 1998 on suspicion of having masterminded the 1996 kidnap of German tobacco mogul Jan Philip Reemtsma, who was freed after his family paid a record $16.5 million ransom.

The Argentine government decided not to continue with charges against Drach of entering the country with false documents. He had registered at his hotel under the name of Anthony Lawlor with a British passport.

Known for his love of the good life, Drach had been travelling around the world under false names since the kidnapping of Reemtsma. He had driven to Buenos Aires to see a Rolling Stones concert in a luxury Mercedes Benz with a Uruguayan girlfriend.

Drach, who has been held in a safe section of the dangerous and run-down Caseros prison in Buenos Aires, has been trying to resist being sent back to Germany.

"He wants to stay in Buenos Aires. He's not going to be happy about this," said Drach's lawyer Victor Stinfale.

Stinfale told Reuters he had still not been officially informed of the extradition decree but that he assumed Drach would be sent home in the next few days. No serious legal recourse against the order remained, the lawyer said.

A German embassy spokesman said he was not authorized to comment on the case.

Reemtsma was held in chains for 33 days in the basement of a house in north Germany. Two kidnappers were arrested in Spain after Reemtsma's release in April 1996. They were jailed but Cologne-born Drach, believed to be the ringleader, remained at large.

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