Kopp Wanted To Come Home

Sources tell CBS News that accused murderer and fugitive James C. Kopp was desperately making plans to return to the United States at the time of his arrest.

Ominously, he hinted to friends that after a rest, he was ready to start stalking abortion doctors again, CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports.

But FBI agents, it turns out, had virtually lived inside the walls of the Brooklyn apartment of Kopp's fellow anti-abortion activists, Dennis Malvasi and Loretta Marra.

The FBI had honeycombed the rooms and telephones with microphones so they could listen in while allegedly plotted with Kopp for his return. In an unprecedented bit of eavesdropping, sources say FBI agents read Internet mail between Kopp and his two friends literally as they typed it.

"Dear person, this keyboard is all frenchied up," Kopp wrote earlier this month. "The sooner I get about 1000, the sooner you see this smiling cherubic face."

We have "as much '$' as you need," came the reply from New York.

But when Kopp tried to pick it up at this post office in Dinan, France, on Thursday, clerks alerted the police. "He wore glasses and looked like a homeless man," a French officer said in French.

Kopp, who is accused of shooting abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian on Oct. 23, 1998, had been the subject of a manhunt for two years.

AP Dennis Malvasi, who is wanted for helping Kopp, being arrested by FBI agents.SIZE>

Kopp, of St. Albans, Vt., was being held by French authorities Friday in Rennes, where he is jailed while awaiting a formal extradition request from the United States.

The French said it was unlikely they would extradite Kopp if they knew he may face the death penalty. France outlawed the death penalty in 1981 and by law does not extradite suspects who face it.

"They will refuse to extradite him," French Prosecutor Christine Lecrom said. The U.S. prosecutor has hinted that she would not seek the death penalty for Kopp, to hasten his extradition.

Lecrom said Kopp had the right to ask French courts to release him on bail.

Kopp became the subject of an international manhunt a month after Slepian's shooting. He had used at least 28 aliases and been arrested in more than two dozen places in the United States and Italy for protesting abortion.

French police sources said Kopp used the name "O'Brian" and held three passports — one American and two Irish. He had lived in Ireland for about a year until March 12, according to U.S. officials. It was unclear when he arrived in France.