Italy dealt double blow over organised crime

[kskiska]

Source: The Guardian

• US refuses to extradite convicted drug trafficker
• 'Supergrass' dies before political killing testimony

Italian officials expressed outrage. The justice minister, Clemente Mastella, said he doubted whether "a country that uses the death penalty is more in line with UN values that a country that enforces tough prison sentences". Piero Luigi Vigna, formerly the chief anti-mafia prosecutor, said the US "can't give lessons on human rights when they have Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib on their conscience".

Gambino, an alleged member of the New York clan headed by John Gotti, spent 22 years in a California jail. Last year, he was released to an immigrant detention centre while his appeal against extradition was heard.

Italy's special jail regime is known by the article of the law that authorised it as 41b. It is largely the creation of Giovanni Falcone, the star anti-mafia prosecutor killed by Cosa Nostra 15 years ago. Prisoners subject to 41b spend much of each day in solitary confinement. Their cells are stripped of possessions. Their post is censored. Their few family visits are rigorously monitored. And they have limited access to the open air. Amnesty International has expressed concern that the 41b regime could amount to "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" for prisoners.

The Italian authorities have defended it on the grounds that it prevents mafia "dons" from continuing to run their "families" from inside jail. But 41b, which can be applied to those on remand as well as convicted prisoners, is also the key reason why so many hoodlums have turned state's evidence in recent years.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2192687,00.html