ROME: A businessman convicted of laundering money for the Sicilian Mafia will be extradited to Italy from Thailand where he was arrested in 2012 after many years on the run, an Italian prosecutor said on Sunday.
Vito Palazzolo had appealed against a previous extradition order from a Thai court in December 2012 after his detention in March of that year.
“It has been a very long procedure,” Leonardo Agueci, the deputy chief prosecutor in Palermo in Sicily, was quoted by Italian media as saying.
Sicilian-born Palazzolo previously worked as a banker in Switzerland and was convicted in the 1980s of laundering mafia revenues from drug trafficking in an operation named the “Pizza Connection.”
Global concern over air zone
TOKYO: Japan called on China yesterday to see “reality” and “accept” there are international concerns over Beijing’s controversial air defence zone. The comment by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s right-hand man came after China singled out Japan for criticism when 11 Asian countries stressed the importance of freedom of overflight at a summit in Tokyo, in a move seen as targeting Beijing.
“We think China should see the reality that many countries share concerns about the Air Defence Identification Zone and accept it,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular briefing.
A statement by Japan and leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations “agreed to enhance cooperation in ensuring freedom of overflight and civil aviation safety”.
While the statement did not name China, it was seen as a rebuke to Beijing, which has sovereignty disputes with Japan and four members of the economic bloc. Agencies
