SWITZERLAND: The Slippery One

As the blue police Volkswagen bus pulled up in front of the courthouse in Winterthur, Switzerland one day last week, a ripple of anticipation ran through the waiting crowd. "Here he comes," yelled a photographer—and out stepped a curly-haired Englishman, bound for the most sensational trial Switzerland had seen in years. But the prisoner's names —Donald Hume alias Donald Brown alias John Stephen Bird—were not on the tips of Swiss tongues alone. In Britain, Hume is Scotland Yard's most notorious enemy —and just about the slipperiest the Yard has ever had.

Only 16 months...