THE HAGUE, Netherlands - A French fugitive wanted by Interpol over a double murder more than 30 years ago was arrested at Amsterdam airport Friday after arriving on a plane from Indonesia, police said.
Thierry Ascione, 64, was found guilty of the 1991 killings of two French nationals who owned a restaurant in Guatemala, and spent decades on the run.
He was nabbed in Indonesia for immigration offences in 2021 when a storm damaged his yacht off Sulawesi island, and Indonesian authorities had been trying to deport him for months.
"I can confirm that we have arrested a 64-year-old Frenchman this morning at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. He’s wanted in France for a murder case," a spokesman for the Dutch Royal Marechaussee, or border police, told AFP.
"He will later be extradited to France."
The French embassy in Jakarta had issued him a pass to travel as he was the subject of a red notice by Interpol, an embassy source said.
The suspect's lawyer confirmed his arrival in Amsterdam and said he would be placed in police custody before an extradition hearing expected on Tuesday.
"The state of his health is very worrying," lawyer Salome Cohen told AFP.
Known as a petty hoodlum from Marseille, Ascione arrived in Guatemala in 1991 and went into business to try to sell trucks to the military junta.
He was found responsible for organising the assassination of a couple of French restaurateurs in Guatemala in December 1991 to steal their savings.
Ascione was arrested in 1995 in Paris and remained in custody until 2000. He fled six months before his trial began.
A court in Paris tried him in absentia and sentenced him to life in prison in 2001.
Ascione had been on the run since in various countries including the Philippines, until his arrest in Indonesia, and has disputed the allegations on social media.
Indonesian immigration officials had tried in recent months to deport him to France on several occasions, but airlines had refused to transport him unescorted.