Arson Suspect Will Fight Extradition

The lawyer for Martin Pang, charged in a warehouse fire that killed four firefighters, said Wednesday that Pang will fight extradition from Brazil and will use that country’s laws to make sure he gets fair legal treatment here.

“We intend to utilize Brazil’s extradition process to make the state prove its accusations against Martin,” John Henry Browne said.

The decision means King County prosecutors will have to show Brazilian authorities they had probable cause to charge Pang with arson and four counts of first-degree murder in the Jan. 5 fire at a warehouse owned by Pang’s parents.

In other developments, King County prosecutors were checking whether Pang could have been in Seattle when the fire was set. And Pang said in a KING-TV interview from Brazil that he cried when he learned four firefighters had died.

Pang has been held in a Rio de Janeiro jail since he was arrested March 16 after fleeing the United States.

He told KING he fled from California to Brazil because he thought mistakenly there could be no extradition to the United States.

Pang has said he was in California when the fire was set at the Mary Pang Food Products warehouse and appeared to have an alibi when he made long-distance calls from that state less than four hours after the fire was set.

But The Seattle Times reported Wednesday that prosecutors were looking into the possibility that Pang may have caught a flight out of Seattle at 7:45 p.m. and arrived in Burbank, Calif., at 9:57 p.m. that night, then made the calls.

Prosecutors would not say if they were focusing on Pang as the person who actually set the fire, the Times reported. In an jailhouse interview aired Tuesday, Pang called his arson-murder prosecution a “witchhunt.”

“When I heard about the four deaths, I cried,” he said. “When I finally got up the courage to go see the building, it was like saying goodbye to siblings.”

Pang said he ran from the United States because he was scared. He repeated earlier claims that he was being railroaded.

“If they have somebody to put in the frying pan, then it doesn’t become a senseless death,” he said.

Browne, who recently returned from Brazil, said he will argue Pang cannot be extradited because prosecutors don’t have enough evidence tying him to the arson. Browne also said Brazilian justice officials may ask that the murder charges leveled against Pang be reduced to manslaughter before he’s brought to trial.

“In Brazil, as in most democratic countries in the world, there is no such thing as felony murder,” Browne said. “In Brazil, it is not murder without the intent to kill … and clearly whoever set that warehouse fire did not intend to kill anyone.”

The King County prosecutor’s office said Brazil does not have the authority to dictate certain charges or penalties once it agrees to an extradition.

“Our understanding is that there should not be any legal barriers that would prohibit us from bringing Martin back and making us change our original charges,” said Dan Donohoe, a prosecutor’s office spokesman.

Brazil’s Supreme Court is expected to take one to three months to decide.

A Brazilian extradition proceeding is similar to a mini-trial on the charges someone faces in his home country, King County prosecutors have said.

King County prosecutors must meet a Monday deadline for extradition papers to reach Brazil’s Supreme Court. All the paperwork, including affidavits of 15 witnesses, has been sent to Brazil. But it was not clear as of late Wednesday if it had reached the court, Donohoe said.