US judge says Italian mobster would face ‘torture’ if extradited home

ITALY’S justice minister has objected to a US court’s refusal to extradite a convicted Mafia drug trafficker on the grounds that a special prison regime he would face in Italy is equivalent to torture.

Rosario Gambino completed a 22-year jail term in California for drug trafficking about a year ago and has since been kept in an immigration detention centre pending an extradition request from his native Sicily.

The Los Angeles Times newspaper reported that a US immigration judge had ruled that in Italy, Gambino would face a harsh special prison regime that “constitutes torture”.