Prosecutor Seeks Pang’s Return Brazilian Court Asked To Send Arson, Murder Suspect To U.S.

King County prosecutors are again urging the Brazilian Supreme Court to send Martin Pang back to the United States to face murder charges, saying his arguments to avoid extradition are inaccurate.

“We are confident that this honorable court will not be misled by Martin Pang’s protestations of innocence or his blatant misrepresentations of the facts of these crimes,” Prosecutor Norm Maleng’s letter said.

Pang, 39, is charged with setting fire to his parents’ frozen-foods warehouse in Seattle’s International District on Jan. 5. Four firefighters died in the blaze.

Pang, charged with murder and arson, was arrested in Brazil in March. Pang’s Brazilian lawyers, working with Seattle lawyers John Henry Browne and Allen Ressler, told the court in June that he should be tried for second-degree arson and not murder, saying they would not fight extradition on the lesser charge.

They also asserted that their client’s statement to FBI agents last March in Rio was illegally coerced and that mistakes made by the Seattle Fire Department were to blame for the firefighters’ deaths. The lawyers contended that Pang could receive the death penalty and that he was charged only because of sensational press coverage.

Maleng countered those assertions, telling the court:

Pang’s statement to the FBI was obtained legally after he was advised of his rights.

The state Department of Labor and Industries found that safety rules violations made by the Fire Department did not directly result in the firefighters’ deaths.

If convicted of first-degree murder, Pang could get, at most, a life sentence, not the death penalty.

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