'Britain helping the mafia' claim Italian prosecutors

Italy's top anti-mafia prosecutors have been angered by the decision of a British court not to extradite the convicted Cosa Nostra member Domenico Rancadore

Britain has been accused of creating a “haven for the mafia” by refusing to extradite a convicted member of the crime organisation because of poor prison conditions he would face in Italy.

Franco Roberti, Italy’s top anti-mafia prosecutor, described the decision as “devastating”, saying it would enable members of the mafia to take advantage of what he described as Britain’s apparently lax approach to fighting organised crime. A senior district judge at Westminster Magistrates Court last week turned down Italy’s request for the extradition of mafia boss Domenico Rancadore, citing a ruling by the European court which claimed there was “a systemic problem” with its prison system, leading to degrading and inhuman treatment of inmates.

Howard Riddle refused to sanction the extradition of Rancadore, who fled Italy in 1994, on the grounds he could face similar conditions. The Sicilian’s lawyers argued that Italy’s overcrowded prison’s could worsen their client’s chronic chest pains. But Italian magistrates and politicians have reacted furiously to the British court’s ruling, claiming it threatens to undermine their fight against the Mafia.

Mr Roberti, who has been appointed chief prosecutor at Italy’s National Anti-Mafia Directorate, said: “The decision by the judge is very dangerous as a mafia member can take advantage of the situation and escape to the UK. This is a devastating decision. I am very unhappy that they have based it on what Randacore’s lawyers said.” He added: “His decision is unfounded and based on the arguments put forward by Randacore’s lawyers. I don’t believe he would have made that decision if he had asked the Italian government about how he would have been incarcerated in Italy. We would have given appropriate assurances that he would not have been jailed in overcrowded conditions and guaranteed a cell met the minimum standard of three-square metres.

Vittorio Teresi, the Palermo prosecutor who spearheaded the extradition case against Rancadore, said: “This is very worrying as the court’s decision seems to be so out of line with our evaluation. It certainly sets a very dangerous precedent. The UK is at risk of becoming a haven for mafiosi who want to do business or hide their wealth there.”

The anti-mafia priest who was targeted in a campaign of violence and intimidation by Rancadore and his men says the UK court’s decision is a “dangerous mistake”. When former prison chaplain Father Gino Sacchetti, 75, who now lives in the northern city of Verona, defied the Cosa Nostra in Palermo he found a dead lamb left at his front door, his car was firebombed. He also received bullets in the post with a note that read: 'The first is for your heart, the second for your head, the third for the coup de grace. This is your final warning.’

Father Sacchetti said of Mr Riddle’s decision: “This is an injustice. They refused to extradite him. It’s absurd. He has been found guilty and sentenced of crimes in Italy. He should go to jail because the crimes are serious.” Their criticism came as Pope Francis issued his strongest condemnation yet of the mafia, telling its bosses they will end up in hell if they do not convert and abandon their lives of "bloodstained money [and] bloodstained power". Rancadore, 65, was found by Italian prosecutors of being a “prominent representative” and a former “man of honour” in Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia, for whom he collected bribes from builders in Trabia, near Palermo.

He fled to London with his wife Anne, the daughter of an Italian diplomat, in 1994 and lived unobserved for two decades before detectives raided his home last August. In 1999 Rancadore was convicted in his absence of Mafia “association” – or membership – between December 1987 and 13 April 1995. But Mr Riddle said he was bound by a ruling handed down by the High Court in London on a similar case involving Hayle Abdi Badre, a Somali wanted in Italy for alleged financial offences, involving the transfer of large sums in and out of Italy. It cited the European court of human rights ruling that there was insufficient assurance that Badre’s human rights would be guaranteed by Italy’s prison system. The ruling pointed out that Italy’s prison’s had been subject to a year-long state of emergency recently because of overcrowding, but that the problem was still severe – with an overcrowding rate of 148 per cent as a result of more than 67,000 people being held in 206 prisons with room for only 45,000.

In his 21-page judgment, Mr Riddle said he could not accept assurances from the Italian authorities that prison conditions in the country would not breach Rancadore’s human rights. Mr Riddle said: “The judgment of the administrative court is binding on me. The higher court accepted that a similar assurance given in that case was in good faith, but was not sufficient.” The judge freed Rancadore on police bail, to his and his wife’s obvious delight. As part of his bail conditions, Rancadore must pay a £20,000 security, sign in at Uxbridge police station each day and obey a strict curfew between the hours of 10pm and 2am and 10am and 2pm.

Rancadore had lived with his family under the false name of Marc Skinner in Uxbridge, west London, from 1994 until his arrest by Metropolitan police officers in August 2013. He had been tracked down after a call from pay phone in the London suburb of Uxbridge to a member of Rancadoere’s extended family in Trabia was traced.

Neighbours in Uxbridge knew Rancadore as Marc Skinner, and described him as “smartly dressed, reserved and polite”. The father of two is said to have told an officer after being arrested in his back garden: “You can’t send me back there, they will kill me. I’ve been here since 1994 and have done nothing wrong. I’m not going back.” Born in Palermo, Sicily, in 1949, Rancadore was the son of the notoriously violent Mafia boss Giuseppe Rancadore, who was involved in the 1992 murder of anti-Mafia judge Giovanni Falcone and was later jailed for life. Domenico – or Mimmo – worked as a PE teacher and before turning to crime, when he became known as 'the Professor’, and began extorting protection money from hotels and restaurants on behalf of the Trabia mafia. Italian police claim he was involved in the so-called Mafia Wars which traumatised Sicily for years.

Italy’s justice minister, Andrea Orlando, will travel to Strasbourg tomorrow in a bid to convince the European Court of Human Rights and other European officials that Italy is serious about dealing with the prison overcrowding that has several extradition requests in recent years. But the government is also determined to maintain a tough stance on any release of inmates sentenced for mafia-related activity.

On a visit to the south of the country on Friday to mark Italy’s national day of remembrance for Mafia victims, interior minister Angelino Alfano said: “We cannot agree to empty the prisons and fill up our cemeteries.” Mr Alfano was speaking during a visit to the southern city of Taranto, where a child was gunned down along with his mother down in a mafia killing last week. The target was believed to be Cosimo Orlando, 43, who was shot behind the wheel beside his partner Carla Maria Fornari, 30, who was holding three-year-old Domenico Petruzzelli.