'Honeymoon killer' Watson set to return to US

Thu, 18 Nov 2010

Sydney - An American convicted of killing his wife during a honeymoon scuba-dive on the Great Barrier Reef was cleared Thursday for extradition to the United States.

The Australian government has received the required assurance that Gabe Watson would not face the death penalty if he goes on trial in the US for murdering Tina Watson 11 days after their wedding.

Watson was released this month into Immigration Department custody after controversially serving 18 months in a Brisbane prison for manslaughter.

"We are confident that they will neither seek, impose nor apply the death penalty to Mr Watson on his return to the United States," Immigration Department spokesman Sandi Logan said. "We are quite confident we can trust the US government on this matter."

The 34-year-old avoided a murder charge in Australia over the 2003 death of his 26-year-old bride by entering a guilty plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Chilling video footage inadvertently captured by a fellow diver showed Watson swimming away while she sank to the ocean floor.

It was alleged at his 2009 trial that Watson held his wife in a bear hug, turned off her air supply and turned the valve back on when she was dead or nearly dead.

There was outrage in both Australia and the US over the leniency of the sentence.

In Alabama, the Watsons' home state, Attorney General Troy King has vowed to put the bubble-wrap salesman on trial for murder on his return to the US.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/354084,watson-set-return-us.html.