Supreme Court agrees to hear Drescher extradition appeal CHARLESTON, W.Va. (UPI) _ The Wes

Supreme Court agrees to hear Drescher extradition appeal
   CHARLESTON, W.Va. (UPI) _ The West Virginia Supreme Court Tuesday
unanimously agreed to hear the appeal of a Hare Krishna swami of an
order sending him to California to face a murder charge.
   Swami Thomas Drescher appealed an Aug. 13 ruling sending him to
California,where he is wanted for the murder of a former Krishna.
   In his appeal, Drescher said he was not in California in May 1986
when prosecutors say Krishna dissident Steven Bryant was murdered.
Drescher claims he was attending a religious festival at Ohio State
University in Columbus, Ohio, at the time.
   However, during Drescher's extradition hearing in Marshall County,
a sworn statement by the manager of a car rental agency said the swami
rented a car from the agency's Los Angeles International airport office
on May 20, 1986.
   Los Angeles police took the manager's statement after he refused to
travel to West Virginia, saying it would cause him financial hardship.
   Drescher is serving a life sentence in the West Virginia
Penitentiary for the 1984 murder of ex-devotee Charles St. Denis. He
also faces an additional term of up to 10 years in an arson-for-profit
scheme, in which he was convicted of torching a building to cheat an
insurance company out of $40,000.