Vito Roberto Palazzolo
Encyclopedia
Terrasini
Terrasini is a town and comune in the Province of Palermo on the island of Sicily in Italy.-Data:Terrasini is located west of Palermo at the motorway between Palermo and Trapani, between the mountains and the Gulf of Castellammare near the Palermo International Airport.Terrasini's population works...
, he moved to South Africa in the mid 1980s. He also goes by the name Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko. He is alleged to be a member of the Sicilian
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
, an allegation he denies. In March 2009, the highest court in Italy confirmed a 2006 nine-year sentence for association with the Mafia. He is alleged to be a Mafia treasurer
Treasurer
A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The adjective for a treasurer is normally "tresorial". The adjective "treasurial" normally means pertaining to a treasury, rather than the treasurer.-Government:...
linked to Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and is suspected of having been the head of the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the village of Corleone, and de facto capo di tutti capi of the entire Sicilian Mafia until his arrest in 2006.His nickname is Binnu u tratturi...
, the Mafia boss arrested in April 2006 in Corleone
Corleone
Corleone is a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy....
, Sicily, and his predecessor Salvatore Riina
Salvatore Riina
Salvatore "Totò" Riina is a member of the Sicilian Mafia who became the most powerful member of the criminal organization in the early 1980s. Fellow mobsters nicknamed him The Beast due to his violent nature, or sometimes The Short One due to his diminutive stature...
, both serving life sentences in Italian jails. Palazzolo maintains his innocence and claims that he has been persecuted by the Italian government, the press, lawyers, politicians, and "opportunists" for the last 19 years.
Money laundering accusations
Palazzolo left home in 1962 at the age of 15 and emigrated to Switzerland. He completed his studies in Switzerland and Germany and started working as a private banker, servicing high net worth individuals, and made substantial amounts of money in the diamond trade. In 1982, he founded Consultfin SA with Franco Della Torre, a financial services arm of one of three major Swiss banks in Lugano, Switzerland. The company became a conduit for financial operations of heroin traffickers linked to the Mafia.Palazzolo first came to the attention of law enforcement in Italy and the United States in the course of money laundering activities in the Pizza Connection
Pizza Connection Trial
The Pizza Connection Trial was one of the longest criminal jury trials on record in the district of Manhattan. It took place between October 24, 1985 and March 2, 1987-Scope of the trial:...
heroin trafficking ring between Turkey, Sicily and New York. Italian and US intelligence officers estimate that Palazzolo was involved in a network that laundered more than US$1.5 billion in drug money through Switzerland. Some of the money was moved by Palazzolo through offshore companies and fronts from 1979 until his arrest in Lugano
Lugano
Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
(Switzerland) on April 20, 1984, on an international arrest warrant from Italy.
The Swiss Criminal Court in Lugano
Lugano
Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
sentenced Palazzolo in September 1985 to a three-year prison term for money laundering
Money laundering
Money laundering is the process of disguising illegal sources of money so that it looks like it came from legal sources. The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication. Many regulatory and governmental authorities quote estimates each year for the amount...
, after establishing he was in control of some of the accounts where money raised from the heroin sales were deposited. The Court established that Palazzolo and his partner Franco Della Torre moved 6 million dollars in 1982, half of which was converted into 200 kg. of gold, for Mafia boss Antonio Rotolo
Antonio Rotolo
Antonio "Nino" Rotolo is an Italian Mafia boss from the Pagliarelli area in Palermo that traditionally was under the control of the Motisi Mafia family. Rotolo was the underboss of Matteo Motisi, but according to some pentiti he was the de facto leader representing the mandamento on the Sicilian...
, who seriously threatened Palazzolo to return him the money when the latter was warned that the FBI was investigating the suspicious money transfers. Palazzolo "participated in the financing of the illegal trafficking of narcotics and served as intermediaries in its financing, making the necessary preparations and contributing in this way to dealing in considerable quantities of morphine base, which were shipped by sea from Turkey to Southern Italy, where it was processed into heroin, and from there sent to the USA for sale to consumers."
The appeal court increased the sentence to five-and-a-half years in April 1986. In 1993, the Bundesgericht in Bern reduced the sentence to three years and nine months, for having acted in "dolus eventualis", which is a legal interpretation of reckless disregard, somewhere between intent and negligence.
In Italy he was charged for the same offences in the procedures against the Italian end of the Pizza Connection. An arrest warrant was issued in April 1984 by prosecuting magistrate Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
requesting Palazzolo’s extradition. The extradition was refused because he was already on trial before the Swiss courts. In March 1992 a criminal court in Rome convicted Palazzolo for the crime of “association with the purpose of financing for narcotics trafficking” and sentenced him to two years. He was acquitted on the charge of Mafia association, however, because the fact “did not exist”. The conviction was suspended, because Palazzolo had already served three years in prison in Switzerland, for the same facts.
At the time, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) considered him to be one of the top seven in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. However, he is never mentioned as a member of the top echelon of Cosa Nostra in court sentences and academic studies. State witness Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè is an Italian mafioso from Caccamo in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. He became one of the most important Mafia turncoats after his arrest in April 2002....
claimed that the Sicilian Mafia's interests in the drug trade in Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and the Far East were managed by Palazzolo. Giuffrè's claim could not be substantiated.
Escape to South Africa
While on 36-hour parole from a prison in Switzerland he absconded to South Africa on a false passport – obtained from a fellow inmate at a prison in LuganoLugano
Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
, Switzerland – and a holiday visa in December 1986. Palazzolo travelled to the Eastern Cape, where National Party
National Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
parliamentarian Peet de Pontes for East London had organised Ciskei
Ciskei
Ciskei was a Bantustan in the south east of South Africa. It covered an area of 2,970 square miles , almost entirely surrounded by what was then the Cape Province, and possessed a small coastline along the shore of the Indian Ocean....
residence for him. Palazzolo acquired Ciskei citizenship, and a new name: Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko, claiming aristocratic German lineage, born in Burgersdorp
Burgersdorp
Burgersdorp is a small town in the Ukhahlamba District Municipality of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.The Afrikaner Bond political party was founded in Burgersdorp in 1881.-Rail:The first rail connection to Burgersdorp was opened on 19 March 1885...
. On the strength of a new passport in this name, he obtained resident status in South Africa – but all files relating to the application are missing.
The former Ciskei ambassador plenipotentiary, Douw Steyn, told the Harms Commission which investigated the so-called "Palazzolo affair" that Ciskei law had been specially amended to accommodate Palazzolo on condition he donate money to the homeland.
After inviting a Home Affairs official to his farm at Franschhoek, Palazzolo was granted a South African residence permit in December 1987. By January 1988, Swiss police had traced him and informed their South African counterparts. The South African Narcotics Bureau
South African Police Service
The South African Police Service is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa. Its 1116 police stations in South Africa are divided according to the provincial borders, and a Provincial Commissioner is appointed in each province...
(Sanab) raided Palazzolo's Franschhoek farm, Terra de Luc, and arrested him - seizing 10 guns and diamonds worth 500,000 Rand together with documents indicating that Palazzolo had invested more than 25 million Rand in businesses in South Africa and Namibia. He was declared an undesirable person in South Africa and returned to Switzerland to complete his jail sentence.
After being released from jail Palazzolo returned to South Africa in late 1989 to testify against De Pontes, who was convicted in November 1990 for helping Palazzolo obtain South African residence. De Pontes was fined R35,000 after being convicted of charges including fraud, forgery, and bribery, all linked to Palazzolo's stay in South Africa. After testifying about his own cooked residence application, Palazzolo stayed in South Africa until late 1991, when he was ordered out of the country by the Department of Home Affairs.
De Pontes maintained he was wrongly convicted – saying former minister of foreign affairs Pik Botha
Pik Botha
Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha is a former South African politician who served as the country's foreign minister in the last years of the apartheid era...
threatened in 1988 to "destroy him" after a photograph of Palazzolo and Botha together at an NP function was published in a newspaper. De Pontes said among the deals he and Palazzolo worked on was a 1987 sanctions-busting attempt to import submarines and jet fighters for the apartheid regime.
Political contacts
In 1992, Palazzolo was reportedly living in a residence in CiskeiCiskei
Ciskei was a Bantustan in the south east of South Africa. It covered an area of 2,970 square miles , almost entirely surrounded by what was then the Cape Province, and possessed a small coastline along the shore of the Indian Ocean....
belonging to then-military ruler Oupa Gqozo
Oupa Gqozo
Joshua Oupa Gqozo was the military ruler of the former homeland of Ciskei in South Africa.-Early life:Oupa Gqozo was born in Kroonstad on 10 March 1952, the son of a Christian minister. He was sent away at a young age to stay with a relative living in Witgatboom in Northern Transvaal . There he...
, but soon he was back in South Africa. The Cabinet, headed by president Frederik Willem de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk , often known as F. W. de Klerk, is the former seventh and last State President of apartheid-era South Africa, serving from September 1989 to May 1994...
, approved a new South African residence application in March 1993 although at the time Palazzolo was the subject of an Italian extradition warrant, according to the magazine Africa Confidential
Africa Confidential
Africa Confidential is a fortnightly newsletter covering politics and economics in Africa. It was established in 1960 and is owned by the British company, Asempa Limited. Founded by a group of six individuals under the banner of Miramoor Publications, Africa Confidential was originally printed on...
. In September 1993, De Klerk's government issued a passport to Palazzolo.
According to some sources Palazzolo allegedly blackmailed former foreign minister Pik Botha
Pik Botha
Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha is a former South African politician who served as the country's foreign minister in the last years of the apartheid era...
with photographs showing Botha in a compromising position in bed with a black woman. The photographs are said to be in the possession of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). Botha has said the claim was "absolute rubbish" and threatened a R10 million lawsuit against the Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
The Mail & Guardian is a South African weekly newspaper, published by M&G Media in Johannesburg, South Africa, with a strong focus on politics, government, the environment, civil society and business.- The Mail & Guardian newspaper :...
.
Business interests
Palazzolo quickly ingratiated himself with the National PartyNational Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
when he arrived in South Africa in 1986 and also successfully wooed many in the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
(ANC) long before Mandela’s party won the 1994 election, which definitively ended the Apartheid regime. Palazzolo established businesses in Southern Africa, ranging from bottled water to diamond prospecting. His interests are represented either through his sons Christian and Pietro, or through the Von Palace Kolbatschenko Trust. The trust, with offices in Cape Town, is affiliated to Palazzolo's Cape International Holdings, registered in the British Virgin Islands
British Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands, often called the British Virgin Islands , is a British overseas territory and overseas territory of the European Union, located in the Caribbean to the east of Puerto Rico. The islands make up part of the Virgin Islands archipelago, the remaining islands constituting the U.S...
.
Among the approximately 20 companies allegedly linked to him are Anglo-Cape Diamonds, Von Palace Cutting Works and La Vie Mineral Waters. One big foreign deal involved taking a 15% stake in a valuable Angolan diamond concession. Since a tax audit on him started in September 1997, he has argued that his only business enterprise in South Africa is the Franschhoek farm, and that he has no other tax liabilities in the country.
Heading a Mafia "family" in South Africa
Investigations into Palazzolo restarted in 1995 when police in the Cape received inquiries from Italian police, who were after Mariano Tullio TroiaMariano Tullio Troia
Mariano Tullio Troia was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was on the "most wanted list" of the Italian ministry of the Interior since 1992 until his arrest in Palermo in September 1998....
, a Sicilian mafioso wanted for the murder of Salvatore Lima
Salvatore Lima
Salvatore Lima was an Italian politician from Sicily who was murdered by the Mafia. He is often just referred to as Salvo Lima....
, an associate of former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...
. A March 1998 briefing compiled by Western Cape police intelligence said Italian police claimed Troia was being harboured by Sicilian Salvatore Morettino, a naturalised South African citizen living in Houghton. The Italian police also gave information of contact between Palazzolo and a prominent Sicilian mafia boss, Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia. He murdered the anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone in 1992 and once stated that he had committed between 100 and 200 murders but was unable to remember the exact number...
, convicted in Italy for the murder of Antimafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
.
The document alleged that Palazzolo was believed to head a Mafia "family" in South Africa. Apart from Troia, Mafia suspects Giovanni Bonomo
Giovanni Bonomo
Giovanni Bonomo is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was on the "most wanted list" of the Italian ministry of the Interior since 1996 for two murders, drug trafficking and money laundering, and Mafia association, until his arrest in Senegal in November 2003.-Mafia boss in Partinico:Bonomo was...
and Giuseppe Gelardi were given refuge by Palazzolo in South Africa and Namibia after they escaped arrest in Italy. Italian police travelled to South Africa, where they confirmed the presence of a number of mafia suspects and "the existence of a well-knit network of corrupted South African officials that protect the Italian fugitives".
More judicial inquiries
In November 1999, Palazzolo was arrested in connection with fraud and forgery charges relating to his South African citizenship. Home affairs officials discovered that it was issued fraudulently. He was released on a 500,000 rand bail, but re-arrested at his Bantry Bay home in Cape Town in March 2000. In March 2003, he was acquitted of contravening South African law when applying for citizenship in 1994. The judge criticised the Directorate of Public Prosecutions for wasting the court's time with cases they could never win.Investigators also probed Palazzolo's alleged role in money laundering through Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein
The Principality of Liechtenstein is a doubly landlocked alpine country in Central Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over , and it has an estimated population of 35,000. Its capital is Vaduz. The biggest town is Schaan...
companies and trusts and requested legal assistance from authorities. An international cooperation granted by the regional court in Vaduz
Vaduz
Vaduz is the capital of the principality of Liechtenstein and the seat of the national parliament. The town, located along the Rhine, has about 5,100 inhabitants , most of whom are Roman Catholic. Its cathedral is the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop....
in March 2000 has been ruled invalid. Following an agreement between lawyers for the state and Palazzolo, the Cape High Court ordered that the state "shall forthwith withdraw the requests for mutual legal assistance to Liechtenstein and Switzerland respectively and also any similar requests made to any other countries since 1999".
This means investigators cannot access documents, computer data and other information obtained from four companies and trusts based in. The material was seized and sealed after the Vaduz court approved the cooperation request, stating that "for the period from 1986 to present, the South African investigation authorities have managed to trace approximately 90 transactions to a total of approximately R101,5-million". The Vaduz court decision filed in the Cape High Court said there was a "shrewd scheme" to conceal money flows of millions of dollars into the control of Palazzolo. Reference was made to various offshore accounts, including suspected "Cosa Nostra accounts" and several other companies based outside South Africa.
Palazzolo took Andre Lincoln, former commander of the Presidential Investigation Task Unit (Pitu), to Angola in order to clear his name with the Angolan government.
Convicted in Italy
In 2003 prosecutors from Palermo, Sicily, attempted to have Palazzolo extradited to face charges of Mafia association. Tapes revealed Palazzolo urging his sister Sara to put pressure on Marcello Dell'UtriMarcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri is an influential Italian politician and senior advisor to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi...
to derail attempts to extradite him South Africa, and offering to cut Dell'Utri in on construction deals in Angola. "Don't worry, you don't have to convert him, he's already been converted", Palazzolo said about Dell’Utri – implying that Dell'Utri was a member of the Mafia. Not long afterwards, in April 2004, the extradition request was shelved.
On July 5, 2006, Palazzolo was sentenced in Palermo to nine years in prison for external collusion with the Mafia. Because he had been acquitted in 1992 for Mafia association and in concordance with the ne bis in idem
Ne bis in idem
Ne bis in idem, which translates literally from Latin as "not twice in the same", means that no legal action can be instituted twice for the same cause of action...
principle (the double jeopardy
Double jeopardy
Double jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same, or similar charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction...
clause in common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
jurisdictions) he could not been judged for the same crime twice. Italy asked for Palazzolo to be extradited but the South African justice department said it would only begin processing the extradition request once his appeal against that conviction was finalised. On July 11, 2007, the Court of Appeal in Palermo changed the conviction from external collusion into Mafia association while maintaining the nine-year-prison sentence. The Court of Appeal argued that new evidence by a range of pentiti since the original acquittal for Mafia association in 1992 justified the aggravating conviction.
The court of last resort in Italy, the Supreme Court of Cassation
Court of Cassation (Italy)
The Supreme Court of Cassation is the major court of last resort in Italy. It has its seat in the Rome Hall of Justice.The Court of Cassation exists also to “ensure the observation and the correct interpretation of law” by ensuring the same application of law in the inferior and appeal courts...
, confirmed the nine-year sentence for Mafia association in March 2009. According to several pentiti
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
(collaborating state witnesses) such as Francesco Di Carlo
Francesco Di Carlo
Francesco Di Carlo is a member of the Mafia who turned state witness in 1996...
, Salvatore Cancemi
Salvatore Cancemi
Salvatore Cancemi was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He would be the first member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission that turned himself in voluntarily and became a pentito, a collaborator with the Italian judicial authorities...
, Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia. He murdered the anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone in 1992 and once stated that he had committed between 100 and 200 murders but was unable to remember the exact number...
and Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè is an Italian mafioso from Caccamo in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. He became one of the most important Mafia turncoats after his arrest in April 2002....
, Palazzolo is a member of Cosa Nostra made in the Mafia family of Partinico
Partinico
Partinico is a town and comune in the province of Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy...
. His lawyers denounced the Italian Government at the European Court of Human Rights for the violations that have been committed with regards to Palazzolo. On December 16, 2010, the Court in Caltannisseta accepted a review of the nine-year conviction requested by the lawyers of Palazzolo claiming double jeopardy
Double jeopardy
Double jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same, or similar charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction...
.
Terrasini
Terrasini is a town and comune in the Province of Palermo on the island of Sicily in Italy.-Data:Terrasini is located west of Palermo at the motorway between Palermo and Trapani, between the mountains and the Gulf of Castellammare near the Palermo International Airport.Terrasini's population works...
, he moved to South Africa in the mid 1980s. He also goes by the name Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko. He is alleged to be a member of the Sicilian
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
, an allegation he denies. Il boss finanziere della mafia, Antimafia Duemila, N° 28, January 2003 In March 2009, the highest court in Italy confirmed a 2006 nine-year sentence for association with the Mafia. Definitiva la condanna per il re del riciclaggio, La Repubblica, March 18, 2009 He is alleged to be a Mafia treasurer
Treasurer
A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The adjective for a treasurer is normally "tresorial". The adjective "treasurial" normally means pertaining to a treasury, rather than the treasurer.-Government:...
linked to Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and is suspected of having been the head of the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the village of Corleone, and de facto capo di tutti capi of the entire Sicilian Mafia until his arrest in 2006.His nickname is Binnu u tratturi...
, the Mafia boss arrested in April 2006 in Corleone
Corleone
Corleone is a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy....
, Sicily, and his predecessor Salvatore Riina
Salvatore Riina
Salvatore "Totò" Riina is a member of the Sicilian Mafia who became the most powerful member of the criminal organization in the early 1980s. Fellow mobsters nicknamed him The Beast due to his violent nature, or sometimes The Short One due to his diminutive stature...
, both serving life sentences in Italian jails. Palazzolo maintains his innocence and claims that he has been persecuted by the Italian government, the press, lawyers, politicians, and "opportunists" for the last 19 years.Presumed Guilty, Vito Palazzolo's website (accessed September 11, 2010)
Money laundering accusations
Palazzolo left home in 1962 at the age of 15 and emigrated to Switzerland. He completed his studies in Switzerland and Germany and started working as a private banker, servicing high net worth individuals, and made substantial amounts of money in the diamond trade.Trepp, Swiss Connection, pp. 246-250 In 1982, he founded Consultfin SA with Franco Della Torre, a financial services arm of one of three major Swiss banks in Lugano, Switzerland. The company became a conduit for financial operations of heroin traffickers linked to the Mafia.Palazzolo first came to the attention of law enforcement in Italy and the United States in the course of money laundering activities in the Pizza Connection
Pizza Connection Trial
The Pizza Connection Trial was one of the longest criminal jury trials on record in the district of Manhattan. It took place between October 24, 1985 and March 2, 1987-Scope of the trial:...
heroin trafficking ring between Turkey, Sicily and New York. Italian and US intelligence officers estimate that Palazzolo was involved in a network that laundered more than US$1.5 billion in drug money through Switzerland. Some of the money was moved by Palazzolo through offshore companies and fronts from 1979 until his arrest in Lugano
Lugano
Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
(Switzerland) on April 20, 1984, on an international arrest warrant from Italy. Il boss finanziere della mafia, Antimafia Duemila, N° 28, January 2003State applies to have Palazzolo bail withdrawn, Daily Dispatch, March 7, 2000
The Swiss Criminal Court in Lugano
Lugano
Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
sentenced Palazzolo in September 1985 to a three-year prison term for money laundering
Money laundering
Money laundering is the process of disguising illegal sources of money so that it looks like it came from legal sources. The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication. Many regulatory and governmental authorities quote estimates each year for the amount...
, after establishing he was in control of some of the accounts where money raised from the heroin sales were deposited. 'Pizza connection' tre le condanne e una assoluzione, La Repubblica, September 27, 1985Top cop backs Mafia man, Mail & Guardian, December 12, 1997Palazzolo: The mobster from Burgersdorp, Mail & Guardian, November 19, 1999 The Court established that Palazzolo and his partner Franco Della Torre moved 6 million dollars in 1982, half of which was converted into 200 kg. of gold, for Mafia boss Antonio Rotolo
Antonio Rotolo
Antonio "Nino" Rotolo is an Italian Mafia boss from the Pagliarelli area in Palermo that traditionally was under the control of the Motisi Mafia family. Rotolo was the underboss of Matteo Motisi, but according to some pentiti he was the de facto leader representing the mandamento on the Sicilian...
, who seriously threatened Palazzolo to return him the money when the latter was warned that the FBI was investigating the suspicious money transfers.Sentence by the Criminal Appeal Court of Lugano, No. 130-162(88), September 26, 1985 Palazzolo "participated in the financing of the illegal trafficking of narcotics and served as intermediaries in its financing, making the necessary preparations and contributing in this way to dealing in considerable quantities of morphine base, which were shipped by sea from Turkey to Southern Italy, where it was processed into heroin, and from there sent to the USA for sale to consumers."
The appeal court increased the sentence to five-and-a-half years in April 1986. Schmutzige Wäsche, Der Spiegel, May 12, 1986 In 1993, the Bundesgericht in Bern reduced the sentence to three years and nine months, for having acted in "dolus eventualis", which is a legal interpretation of reckless disregard, somewhere between intent and negligence.
In Italy he was charged for the same offences in the procedures against the Italian end of the Pizza Connection. An arrest warrant was issued in April 1984 by prosecuting magistrate Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
requesting Palazzolo’s extradition. The extradition was refused because he was already on trial before the Swiss courts. In March 1992 a criminal court in Rome convicted Palazzolo for the crime of “association with the purpose of financing for narcotics trafficking” and sentenced him to two years. He was acquitted on the charge of Mafia association, however, because the fact “did not exist”. The conviction was suspended, because Palazzolo had already served three years in prison in Switzerland, for the same facts.Review application before Appeal Court of Caltanissetta, by the defence lwayers of Palazzolo, November 25, 2010
At the time, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) considered him to be one of the top seven in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.FBI names Palazzolo as Cosa Nostra don, Mail & Guardian, October 12, 1998Palazzolo top mafioso - FBI, Daily Dispatch, October 13, 1998 However, he is never mentioned as a member of the top echelon of Cosa Nostra in court sentences and academic studies. State witness Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè is an Italian mafioso from Caccamo in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. He became one of the most important Mafia turncoats after his arrest in April 2002....
claimed that the Sicilian Mafia's interests in the drug trade in Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and the Far East were managed by Palazzolo.Mafia's link to Colombian cartel is revealed, The Independent (London), December 11, 2004 Giuffrè's claim could not be substantiated.
Escape to South Africa
While on 36-hour parole from a prison in Switzerland he absconded to South Africa on a false passport – obtained from a fellow inmate at a prison in LuganoLugano
Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
, Switzerland – and a holiday visa in December 1986.Charges against Palazzolo dropped, Mail & Guardian, September 14, 2001 Palazzolo travelled to the Eastern Cape, where National Party
National Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
parliamentarian Peet de Pontes for East London had organised Ciskei
Ciskei
Ciskei was a Bantustan in the south east of South Africa. It covered an area of 2,970 square miles , almost entirely surrounded by what was then the Cape Province, and possessed a small coastline along the shore of the Indian Ocean....
residence for him. Palazzolo acquired Ciskei citizenship, and a new name: Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko, claiming aristocratic German lineage, born in Burgersdorp
Burgersdorp
Burgersdorp is a small town in the Ukhahlamba District Municipality of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.The Afrikaner Bond political party was founded in Burgersdorp in 1881.-Rail:The first rail connection to Burgersdorp was opened on 19 March 1885...
. On the strength of a new passport in this name, he obtained resident status in South Africa – but all files relating to the application are missing.
The former Ciskei ambassador plenipotentiary, Douw Steyn, told the Harms Commission which investigated the so-called "Palazzolo affair" that Ciskei law had been specially amended to accommodate Palazzolo on condition he donate money to the homeland.
After inviting a Home Affairs official to his farm at Franschhoek, Palazzolo was granted a South African residence permit in December 1987. By January 1988, Swiss police had traced him and informed their South African counterparts. The South African Narcotics Bureau
South African Police Service
The South African Police Service is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa. Its 1116 police stations in South Africa are divided according to the provincial borders, and a Provincial Commissioner is appointed in each province...
(Sanab) raided Palazzolo's Franschhoek farm, Terra de Luc, and arrested him - seizing 10 guns and diamonds worth 500,000 Rand together with documents indicating that Palazzolo had invested more than 25 million Rand in businesses in South Africa and Namibia. He was declared an undesirable person in South Africa and returned to Switzerland to complete his jail sentence.
After being released from jail Palazzolo returned to South Africa in late 1989 to testify against De Pontes, who was convicted in November 1990 for helping Palazzolo obtain South African residence. De Pontes was fined R35,000 after being convicted of charges including fraud, forgery, and bribery, all linked to Palazzolo's stay in South Africa. After testifying about his own cooked residence application, Palazzolo stayed in South Africa until late 1991, when he was ordered out of the country by the Department of Home Affairs.
De Pontes maintained he was wrongly convicted – saying former minister of foreign affairs Pik Botha
Pik Botha
Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha is a former South African politician who served as the country's foreign minister in the last years of the apartheid era...
threatened in 1988 to "destroy him" after a photograph of Palazzolo and Botha together at an NP function was published in a newspaper. De Pontes said among the deals he and Palazzolo worked on was a 1987 sanctions-busting attempt to import submarines and jet fighters for the apartheid regime.'SA mafia' fears Vito's arrest, Mail & Guardian, November 19, 1999
Political contacts
In 1992, Palazzolo was reportedly living in a residence in CiskeiCiskei
Ciskei was a Bantustan in the south east of South Africa. It covered an area of 2,970 square miles , almost entirely surrounded by what was then the Cape Province, and possessed a small coastline along the shore of the Indian Ocean....
belonging to then-military ruler Oupa Gqozo
Oupa Gqozo
Joshua Oupa Gqozo was the military ruler of the former homeland of Ciskei in South Africa.-Early life:Oupa Gqozo was born in Kroonstad on 10 March 1952, the son of a Christian minister. He was sent away at a young age to stay with a relative living in Witgatboom in Northern Transvaal . There he...
, but soon he was back in South Africa. The Cabinet, headed by president Frederik Willem de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk , often known as F. W. de Klerk, is the former seventh and last State President of apartheid-era South Africa, serving from September 1989 to May 1994...
, approved a new South African residence application in March 1993 although at the time Palazzolo was the subject of an Italian extradition warrant, according to the magazine Africa Confidential
Africa Confidential
Africa Confidential is a fortnightly newsletter covering politics and economics in Africa. It was established in 1960 and is owned by the British company, Asempa Limited. Founded by a group of six individuals under the banner of Miramoor Publications, Africa Confidential was originally printed on...
. In September 1993, De Klerk's government issued a passport to Palazzolo.Nats were in bed with Mafia boss, Mail & Guardian, February 5, 1999
According to some sources Palazzolo allegedly blackmailed former foreign minister Pik Botha
Pik Botha
Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha is a former South African politician who served as the country's foreign minister in the last years of the apartheid era...
with photographs showing Botha in a compromising position in bed with a black woman. The photographs are said to be in the possession of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).Did Palazzolo blackmail Pik?, Mail & Guardian, October 9, 1998 Botha has said the claim was "absolute rubbish" and threatened a R10 million lawsuit against the Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
The Mail & Guardian is a South African weekly newspaper, published by M&G Media in Johannesburg, South Africa, with a strong focus on politics, government, the environment, civil society and business.- The Mail & Guardian newspaper :...
.Dispatch readers first to hear of Palazzolo, Daily Dispatch, October 15, 1998'It's rubbish' - Pik Botha, Mail & Guardian, October 16, 1998
Business interests
Palazzolo quickly ingratiated himself with the National PartyNational Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
when he arrived in South Africa in 1986 and also successfully wooed many in the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
(ANC) long before Mandela’s party won the 1994 election, which definitively ended the Apartheid regime.Mafia man free ... for now, Mail & Guardian, July 3, 1998 Palazzolo established businesses in Southern Africa, ranging from bottled water to diamond prospecting. His interests are represented either through his sons Christian and Pietro, or through the Von Palace Kolbatschenko Trust. The trust, with offices in Cape Town, is affiliated to Palazzolo's Cape International Holdings, registered in the British Virgin Islands
British Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands, often called the British Virgin Islands , is a British overseas territory and overseas territory of the European Union, located in the Caribbean to the east of Puerto Rico. The islands make up part of the Virgin Islands archipelago, the remaining islands constituting the U.S...
.
Among the approximately 20 companies allegedly linked to him are Anglo-Cape Diamonds, Von Palace Cutting Works and La Vie Mineral Waters. One big foreign deal involved taking a 15% stake in a valuable Angolan diamond concession. Since a tax audit on him started in September 1997, he has argued that his only business enterprise in South Africa is the Franschhoek farm, and that he has no other tax liabilities in the country.
Heading a Mafia "family" in South Africa
Investigations into Palazzolo restarted in 1995 when police in the Cape received inquiries from Italian police, who were after Mariano Tullio TroiaMariano Tullio Troia
Mariano Tullio Troia was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was on the "most wanted list" of the Italian ministry of the Interior since 1992 until his arrest in Palermo in September 1998....
, a Sicilian mafioso wanted for the murder of Salvatore Lima
Salvatore Lima
Salvatore Lima was an Italian politician from Sicily who was murdered by the Mafia. He is often just referred to as Salvo Lima....
, an associate of former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...
. A March 1998 briefing compiled by Western Cape police intelligence said Italian police claimed Troia was being harboured by Sicilian Salvatore Morettino, a naturalised South African citizen living in Houghton. The Italian police also gave information of contact between Palazzolo and a prominent Sicilian mafia boss, Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia. He murdered the anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone in 1992 and once stated that he had committed between 100 and 200 murders but was unable to remember the exact number...
, convicted in Italy for the murder of Antimafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
.
The document alleged that Palazzolo was believed to head a Mafia "family" in South Africa. Apart from Troia, Mafia suspects Giovanni Bonomo
Giovanni Bonomo
Giovanni Bonomo is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was on the "most wanted list" of the Italian ministry of the Interior since 1996 for two murders, drug trafficking and money laundering, and Mafia association, until his arrest in Senegal in November 2003.-Mafia boss in Partinico:Bonomo was...
and Giuseppe Gelardi were given refuge by Palazzolo in South Africa and Namibia after they escaped arrest in Italy. Italian police travelled to South Africa, where they confirmed the presence of a number of mafia suspects and "the existence of a well-knit network of corrupted South African officials that protect the Italian fugitives". Un " impero " sudafricano per il boss, Corriere della Sera, July 5, 1998
More judicial inquiries
In November 1999, Palazzolo was arrested in connection with fraud and forgery charges relating to his South African citizenship. Home affairs officials discovered that it was issued fraudulently. He was released on a 500,000 rand bail, but re-arrested at his Bantry Bay home in Cape Town in March 2000.Palazzolo re-arrested, Mail & Guardian, March 6, 2000 In March 2003, he was acquitted of contravening South African law when applying for citizenship in 1994. The judge criticised the Directorate of Public Prosecutions for wasting the court's time with cases they could never win.'Palazzolo case wasted the court's time', Weekend Argus, March 14, 2003Investigators also probed Palazzolo's alleged role in money laundering through Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein
The Principality of Liechtenstein is a doubly landlocked alpine country in Central Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over , and it has an estimated population of 35,000. Its capital is Vaduz. The biggest town is Schaan...
companies and trusts and requested legal assistance from authorities. An international cooperation granted by the regional court in Vaduz
Vaduz
Vaduz is the capital of the principality of Liechtenstein and the seat of the national parliament. The town, located along the Rhine, has about 5,100 inhabitants , most of whom are Roman Catholic. Its cathedral is the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop....
in March 2000 has been ruled invalid. Following an agreement between lawyers for the state and Palazzolo, the Cape High Court ordered that the state "shall forthwith withdraw the requests for mutual legal assistance to Liechtenstein and Switzerland respectively and also any similar requests made to any other countries since 1999".
This means investigators cannot access documents, computer data and other information obtained from four companies and trusts based in. The material was seized and sealed after the Vaduz court approved the cooperation request, stating that "for the period from 1986 to present, the South African investigation authorities have managed to trace approximately 90 transactions to a total of approximately R101,5-million". The Vaduz court decision filed in the Cape High Court said there was a "shrewd scheme" to conceal money flows of millions of dollars into the control of Palazzolo. Reference was made to various offshore accounts, including suspected "Cosa Nostra accounts" and several other companies based outside South Africa.
Palazzolo took Andre Lincoln, former commander of the Presidential Investigation Task Unit (Pitu), to Angola in order to clear his name with the Angolan government.Diamond deal probed, Mail & Guardian, October 23, 1997
Convicted in Italy
In 2003 prosecutors from Palermo, Sicily, attempted to have Palazzolo extradited to face charges of Mafia association. Tapes revealed Palazzolo urging his sister Sara to put pressure on Marcello Dell'UtriMarcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri is an influential Italian politician and senior advisor to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi...
to derail attempts to extradite him South Africa, and offering to cut Dell'Utri in on construction deals in Angola. "Don't worry, you don't have to convert him, he's already been converted", Palazzolo said about Dell’Utri – implying that Dell'Utri was a member of the Mafia. Not long afterwards, in April 2004, the extradition request was shelved.Berlusconi loyalist was 'solid ally of the Mafia' cause, The Independent, April 27, 2006Mafia cops can't go after Palazzolo – yet, Sapa, March 23, 2004 Il boss Palazzolo: Dell'Utri non devi convertirlo, e' gia' convertito, Antimafia Duemila, June 28, 2010
On July 5, 2006, Palazzolo was sentenced in Palermo to nine years in prison for external collusion with the Mafia. Because he had been acquitted in 1992 for Mafia association and in concordance with the ne bis in idem
Ne bis in idem
Ne bis in idem, which translates literally from Latin as "not twice in the same", means that no legal action can be instituted twice for the same cause of action...
principle (the double jeopardy
Double jeopardy
Double jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same, or similar charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction...
clause in common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
jurisdictions) he could not been judged for the same crime twice. Nove anni a Vito Palazzolo era il finanziere di Cosa nostra, La Repubblica, July 6, 2006 Italy asked for Palazzolo to be extradited but the South African justice department said it would only begin processing the extradition request once his appeal against that conviction was finalised.Have the Mafia moved to SA?, Cape Argus, September 30, 2008 On July 11, 2007, the Court of Appeal in Palermo changed the conviction from external collusion into Mafia association while maintaining the nine-year-prison sentence. The Court of Appeal argued that new evidence by a range of pentiti since the original acquittal for Mafia association in 1992 justified the aggravating conviction.
The court of last resort in Italy, the Supreme Court of Cassation
Court of Cassation (Italy)
The Supreme Court of Cassation is the major court of last resort in Italy. It has its seat in the Rome Hall of Justice.The Court of Cassation exists also to “ensure the observation and the correct interpretation of law” by ensuring the same application of law in the inferior and appeal courts...
, confirmed the nine-year sentence for Mafia association in March 2009. According to several pentiti
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
(collaborating state witnesses) such as Francesco Di Carlo
Francesco Di Carlo
Francesco Di Carlo is a member of the Mafia who turned state witness in 1996...
, Salvatore Cancemi
Salvatore Cancemi
Salvatore Cancemi was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He would be the first member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission that turned himself in voluntarily and became a pentito, a collaborator with the Italian judicial authorities...
, Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia. He murdered the anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone in 1992 and once stated that he had committed between 100 and 200 murders but was unable to remember the exact number...
and Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè is an Italian mafioso from Caccamo in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. He became one of the most important Mafia turncoats after his arrest in April 2002....
, Palazzolo is a member of Cosa Nostra made in the Mafia family of Partinico
Partinico
Partinico is a town and comune in the province of Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy...
. Concorso esterno. Ma l’imputato è mafioso, Antimafia Duemila, Anno VI Numero 4 - 2006 N°50 His lawyers denounced the Italian Government at the European Court of Human Rights for the violations that have been committed with regards to Palazzolo. Il tesoriere di Riina si iscrive a Facebook, La Repubblica (Edition Palermo), June 25, 2009 Il tesoriere di Riina scrive all'Antimafia: "Voglio essere ascoltato, sono una vittima", La Repubblica (Palermo), December 4, 2010 On December 16, 2010, the Court in Caltannisseta accepted a review of the nine-year conviction requested by the lawyers of Palazzolo claiming double jeopardy
Double jeopardy
Double jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same, or similar charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction...
.
Terrasini
Terrasini is a town and comune in the Province of Palermo on the island of Sicily in Italy.-Data:Terrasini is located west of Palermo at the motorway between Palermo and Trapani, between the mountains and the Gulf of Castellammare near the Palermo International Airport.Terrasini's population works...
, he moved to South Africa in the mid 1980s. He also goes by the name Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko. He is alleged to be a member of the Sicilian
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
, an allegation he denies. Il boss finanziere della mafia, Antimafia Duemila, N° 28, January 2003 In March 2009, the highest court in Italy confirmed a 2006 nine-year sentence for association with the Mafia. Definitiva la condanna per il re del riciclaggio, La Repubblica, March 18, 2009 He is alleged to be a Mafia treasurer
Treasurer
A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The adjective for a treasurer is normally "tresorial". The adjective "treasurial" normally means pertaining to a treasury, rather than the treasurer.-Government:...
linked to Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano
Bernardo Provenzano is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and is suspected of having been the head of the Corleonesi, a Mafia faction that originated in the village of Corleone, and de facto capo di tutti capi of the entire Sicilian Mafia until his arrest in 2006.His nickname is Binnu u tratturi...
, the Mafia boss arrested in April 2006 in Corleone
Corleone
Corleone is a small town and comune of approximately 12,000 inhabitants in the Province of Palermo in Sicily, Italy....
, Sicily, and his predecessor Salvatore Riina
Salvatore Riina
Salvatore "Totò" Riina is a member of the Sicilian Mafia who became the most powerful member of the criminal organization in the early 1980s. Fellow mobsters nicknamed him The Beast due to his violent nature, or sometimes The Short One due to his diminutive stature...
, both serving life sentences in Italian jails. Palazzolo maintains his innocence and claims that he has been persecuted by the Italian government, the press, lawyers, politicians, and "opportunists" for the last 19 years.Presumed Guilty, Vito Palazzolo's website (accessed September 11, 2010)
Money laundering accusations
Palazzolo left home in 1962 at the age of 15 and emigrated to Switzerland. He completed his studies in Switzerland and Germany and started working as a private banker, servicing high net worth individuals, and made substantial amounts of money in the diamond trade.Trepp, Swiss Connection, pp. 246-250 In 1982, he founded Consultfin SA with Franco Della Torre, a financial services arm of one of three major Swiss banks in Lugano, Switzerland. The company became a conduit for financial operations of heroin traffickers linked to the Mafia.Palazzolo first came to the attention of law enforcement in Italy and the United States in the course of money laundering activities in the Pizza Connection
Pizza Connection Trial
The Pizza Connection Trial was one of the longest criminal jury trials on record in the district of Manhattan. It took place between October 24, 1985 and March 2, 1987-Scope of the trial:...
heroin trafficking ring between Turkey, Sicily and New York. Italian and US intelligence officers estimate that Palazzolo was involved in a network that laundered more than US$1.5 billion in drug money through Switzerland. Some of the money was moved by Palazzolo through offshore companies and fronts from 1979 until his arrest in Lugano
Lugano
Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
(Switzerland) on April 20, 1984, on an international arrest warrant from Italy. Il boss finanziere della mafia, Antimafia Duemila, N° 28, January 2003State applies to have Palazzolo bail withdrawn, Daily Dispatch, March 7, 2000
The Swiss Criminal Court in Lugano
Lugano
Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
sentenced Palazzolo in September 1985 to a three-year prison term for money laundering
Money laundering
Money laundering is the process of disguising illegal sources of money so that it looks like it came from legal sources. The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication. Many regulatory and governmental authorities quote estimates each year for the amount...
, after establishing he was in control of some of the accounts where money raised from the heroin sales were deposited. 'Pizza connection' tre le condanne e una assoluzione, La Repubblica, September 27, 1985Top cop backs Mafia man, Mail & Guardian, December 12, 1997Palazzolo: The mobster from Burgersdorp, Mail & Guardian, November 19, 1999 The Court established that Palazzolo and his partner Franco Della Torre moved 6 million dollars in 1982, half of which was converted into 200 kg. of gold, for Mafia boss Antonio Rotolo
Antonio Rotolo
Antonio "Nino" Rotolo is an Italian Mafia boss from the Pagliarelli area in Palermo that traditionally was under the control of the Motisi Mafia family. Rotolo was the underboss of Matteo Motisi, but according to some pentiti he was the de facto leader representing the mandamento on the Sicilian...
, who seriously threatened Palazzolo to return him the money when the latter was warned that the FBI was investigating the suspicious money transfers.Sentence by the Criminal Appeal Court of Lugano, No. 130-162(88), September 26, 1985 Palazzolo "participated in the financing of the illegal trafficking of narcotics and served as intermediaries in its financing, making the necessary preparations and contributing in this way to dealing in considerable quantities of morphine base, which were shipped by sea from Turkey to Southern Italy, where it was processed into heroin, and from there sent to the USA for sale to consumers."
The appeal court increased the sentence to five-and-a-half years in April 1986. Schmutzige Wäsche, Der Spiegel, May 12, 1986 In 1993, the Bundesgericht in Bern reduced the sentence to three years and nine months, for having acted in "dolus eventualis", which is a legal interpretation of reckless disregard, somewhere between intent and negligence.
In Italy he was charged for the same offences in the procedures against the Italian end of the Pizza Connection. An arrest warrant was issued in April 1984 by prosecuting magistrate Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
requesting Palazzolo’s extradition. The extradition was refused because he was already on trial before the Swiss courts. In March 1992 a criminal court in Rome convicted Palazzolo for the crime of “association with the purpose of financing for narcotics trafficking” and sentenced him to two years. He was acquitted on the charge of Mafia association, however, because the fact “did not exist”. The conviction was suspended, because Palazzolo had already served three years in prison in Switzerland, for the same facts.Review application before Appeal Court of Caltanissetta, by the defence lwayers of Palazzolo, November 25, 2010
At the time, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) considered him to be one of the top seven in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.FBI names Palazzolo as Cosa Nostra don, Mail & Guardian, October 12, 1998Palazzolo top mafioso - FBI, Daily Dispatch, October 13, 1998 However, he is never mentioned as a member of the top echelon of Cosa Nostra in court sentences and academic studies. State witness Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè is an Italian mafioso from Caccamo in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. He became one of the most important Mafia turncoats after his arrest in April 2002....
claimed that the Sicilian Mafia's interests in the drug trade in Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and the Far East were managed by Palazzolo.Mafia's link to Colombian cartel is revealed, The Independent (London), December 11, 2004 Giuffrè's claim could not be substantiated.
Escape to South Africa
While on 36-hour parole from a prison in Switzerland he absconded to South Africa on a false passport – obtained from a fellow inmate at a prison in LuganoLugano
Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
, Switzerland – and a holiday visa in December 1986.Charges against Palazzolo dropped, Mail & Guardian, September 14, 2001 Palazzolo travelled to the Eastern Cape, where National Party
National Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
parliamentarian Peet de Pontes for East London had organised Ciskei
Ciskei
Ciskei was a Bantustan in the south east of South Africa. It covered an area of 2,970 square miles , almost entirely surrounded by what was then the Cape Province, and possessed a small coastline along the shore of the Indian Ocean....
residence for him. Palazzolo acquired Ciskei citizenship, and a new name: Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko, claiming aristocratic German lineage, born in Burgersdorp
Burgersdorp
Burgersdorp is a small town in the Ukhahlamba District Municipality of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa.The Afrikaner Bond political party was founded in Burgersdorp in 1881.-Rail:The first rail connection to Burgersdorp was opened on 19 March 1885...
. On the strength of a new passport in this name, he obtained resident status in South Africa – but all files relating to the application are missing.
The former Ciskei ambassador plenipotentiary, Douw Steyn, told the Harms Commission which investigated the so-called "Palazzolo affair" that Ciskei law had been specially amended to accommodate Palazzolo on condition he donate money to the homeland.
After inviting a Home Affairs official to his farm at Franschhoek, Palazzolo was granted a South African residence permit in December 1987. By January 1988, Swiss police had traced him and informed their South African counterparts. The South African Narcotics Bureau
South African Police Service
The South African Police Service is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa. Its 1116 police stations in South Africa are divided according to the provincial borders, and a Provincial Commissioner is appointed in each province...
(Sanab) raided Palazzolo's Franschhoek farm, Terra de Luc, and arrested him - seizing 10 guns and diamonds worth 500,000 Rand together with documents indicating that Palazzolo had invested more than 25 million Rand in businesses in South Africa and Namibia. He was declared an undesirable person in South Africa and returned to Switzerland to complete his jail sentence.
After being released from jail Palazzolo returned to South Africa in late 1989 to testify against De Pontes, who was convicted in November 1990 for helping Palazzolo obtain South African residence. De Pontes was fined R35,000 after being convicted of charges including fraud, forgery, and bribery, all linked to Palazzolo's stay in South Africa. After testifying about his own cooked residence application, Palazzolo stayed in South Africa until late 1991, when he was ordered out of the country by the Department of Home Affairs.
De Pontes maintained he was wrongly convicted – saying former minister of foreign affairs Pik Botha
Pik Botha
Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha is a former South African politician who served as the country's foreign minister in the last years of the apartheid era...
threatened in 1988 to "destroy him" after a photograph of Palazzolo and Botha together at an NP function was published in a newspaper. De Pontes said among the deals he and Palazzolo worked on was a 1987 sanctions-busting attempt to import submarines and jet fighters for the apartheid regime.'SA mafia' fears Vito's arrest, Mail & Guardian, November 19, 1999
Political contacts
In 1992, Palazzolo was reportedly living in a residence in CiskeiCiskei
Ciskei was a Bantustan in the south east of South Africa. It covered an area of 2,970 square miles , almost entirely surrounded by what was then the Cape Province, and possessed a small coastline along the shore of the Indian Ocean....
belonging to then-military ruler Oupa Gqozo
Oupa Gqozo
Joshua Oupa Gqozo was the military ruler of the former homeland of Ciskei in South Africa.-Early life:Oupa Gqozo was born in Kroonstad on 10 March 1952, the son of a Christian minister. He was sent away at a young age to stay with a relative living in Witgatboom in Northern Transvaal . There he...
, but soon he was back in South Africa. The Cabinet, headed by president Frederik Willem de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk , often known as F. W. de Klerk, is the former seventh and last State President of apartheid-era South Africa, serving from September 1989 to May 1994...
, approved a new South African residence application in March 1993 although at the time Palazzolo was the subject of an Italian extradition warrant, according to the magazine Africa Confidential
Africa Confidential
Africa Confidential is a fortnightly newsletter covering politics and economics in Africa. It was established in 1960 and is owned by the British company, Asempa Limited. Founded by a group of six individuals under the banner of Miramoor Publications, Africa Confidential was originally printed on...
. In September 1993, De Klerk's government issued a passport to Palazzolo.Nats were in bed with Mafia boss, Mail & Guardian, February 5, 1999
According to some sources Palazzolo allegedly blackmailed former foreign minister Pik Botha
Pik Botha
Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha is a former South African politician who served as the country's foreign minister in the last years of the apartheid era...
with photographs showing Botha in a compromising position in bed with a black woman. The photographs are said to be in the possession of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).Did Palazzolo blackmail Pik?, Mail & Guardian, October 9, 1998 Botha has said the claim was "absolute rubbish" and threatened a R10 million lawsuit against the Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
The Mail & Guardian is a South African weekly newspaper, published by M&G Media in Johannesburg, South Africa, with a strong focus on politics, government, the environment, civil society and business.- The Mail & Guardian newspaper :...
.Dispatch readers first to hear of Palazzolo, Daily Dispatch, October 15, 1998'It's rubbish' - Pik Botha, Mail & Guardian, October 16, 1998
Business interests
Palazzolo quickly ingratiated himself with the National PartyNational Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
when he arrived in South Africa in 1986 and also successfully wooed many in the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
(ANC) long before Mandela’s party won the 1994 election, which definitively ended the Apartheid regime.Mafia man free ... for now, Mail & Guardian, July 3, 1998 Palazzolo established businesses in Southern Africa, ranging from bottled water to diamond prospecting. His interests are represented either through his sons Christian and Pietro, or through the Von Palace Kolbatschenko Trust. The trust, with offices in Cape Town, is affiliated to Palazzolo's Cape International Holdings, registered in the British Virgin Islands
British Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands, often called the British Virgin Islands , is a British overseas territory and overseas territory of the European Union, located in the Caribbean to the east of Puerto Rico. The islands make up part of the Virgin Islands archipelago, the remaining islands constituting the U.S...
.
Among the approximately 20 companies allegedly linked to him are Anglo-Cape Diamonds, Von Palace Cutting Works and La Vie Mineral Waters. One big foreign deal involved taking a 15% stake in a valuable Angolan diamond concession. Since a tax audit on him started in September 1997, he has argued that his only business enterprise in South Africa is the Franschhoek farm, and that he has no other tax liabilities in the country.
Heading a Mafia "family" in South Africa
Investigations into Palazzolo restarted in 1995 when police in the Cape received inquiries from Italian police, who were after Mariano Tullio TroiaMariano Tullio Troia
Mariano Tullio Troia was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was on the "most wanted list" of the Italian ministry of the Interior since 1992 until his arrest in Palermo in September 1998....
, a Sicilian mafioso wanted for the murder of Salvatore Lima
Salvatore Lima
Salvatore Lima was an Italian politician from Sicily who was murdered by the Mafia. He is often just referred to as Salvo Lima....
, an associate of former Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti
Giulio Andreotti is an Italian politician of the now dissolved centrist Christian Democracy party. He served as the 42nd Prime Minister of Italy from 1972 to 1973, from 1976 to 1979 and from 1989 to 1992. He also served as Minister of the Interior , Defense Minister and Foreign Minister and he...
. A March 1998 briefing compiled by Western Cape police intelligence said Italian police claimed Troia was being harboured by Sicilian Salvatore Morettino, a naturalised South African citizen living in Houghton. The Italian police also gave information of contact between Palazzolo and a prominent Sicilian mafia boss, Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia. He murdered the anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone in 1992 and once stated that he had committed between 100 and 200 murders but was unable to remember the exact number...
, convicted in Italy for the murder of Antimafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
.
The document alleged that Palazzolo was believed to head a Mafia "family" in South Africa. Apart from Troia, Mafia suspects Giovanni Bonomo
Giovanni Bonomo
Giovanni Bonomo is a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He was on the "most wanted list" of the Italian ministry of the Interior since 1996 for two murders, drug trafficking and money laundering, and Mafia association, until his arrest in Senegal in November 2003.-Mafia boss in Partinico:Bonomo was...
and Giuseppe Gelardi were given refuge by Palazzolo in South Africa and Namibia after they escaped arrest in Italy. Italian police travelled to South Africa, where they confirmed the presence of a number of mafia suspects and "the existence of a well-knit network of corrupted South African officials that protect the Italian fugitives". Un " impero " sudafricano per il boss, Corriere della Sera, July 5, 1998
More judicial inquiries
In November 1999, Palazzolo was arrested in connection with fraud and forgery charges relating to his South African citizenship. Home affairs officials discovered that it was issued fraudulently. He was released on a 500,000 rand bail, but re-arrested at his Bantry Bay home in Cape Town in March 2000.Palazzolo re-arrested, Mail & Guardian, March 6, 2000 In March 2003, he was acquitted of contravening South African law when applying for citizenship in 1994. The judge criticised the Directorate of Public Prosecutions for wasting the court's time with cases they could never win.'Palazzolo case wasted the court's time', Weekend Argus, March 14, 2003Investigators also probed Palazzolo's alleged role in money laundering through Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein
The Principality of Liechtenstein is a doubly landlocked alpine country in Central Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over , and it has an estimated population of 35,000. Its capital is Vaduz. The biggest town is Schaan...
companies and trusts and requested legal assistance from authorities. An international cooperation granted by the regional court in Vaduz
Vaduz
Vaduz is the capital of the principality of Liechtenstein and the seat of the national parliament. The town, located along the Rhine, has about 5,100 inhabitants , most of whom are Roman Catholic. Its cathedral is the seat of a Roman Catholic archbishop....
in March 2000 has been ruled invalid. Following an agreement between lawyers for the state and Palazzolo, the Cape High Court ordered that the state "shall forthwith withdraw the requests for mutual legal assistance to Liechtenstein and Switzerland respectively and also any similar requests made to any other countries since 1999".
This means investigators cannot access documents, computer data and other information obtained from four companies and trusts based in. The material was seized and sealed after the Vaduz court approved the cooperation request, stating that "for the period from 1986 to present, the South African investigation authorities have managed to trace approximately 90 transactions to a total of approximately R101,5-million". The Vaduz court decision filed in the Cape High Court said there was a "shrewd scheme" to conceal money flows of millions of dollars into the control of Palazzolo. Reference was made to various offshore accounts, including suspected "Cosa Nostra accounts" and several other companies based outside South Africa.
Palazzolo took Andre Lincoln, former commander of the Presidential Investigation Task Unit (Pitu), to Angola in order to clear his name with the Angolan government.Diamond deal probed, Mail & Guardian, October 23, 1997
Convicted in Italy
In 2003 prosecutors from Palermo, Sicily, attempted to have Palazzolo extradited to face charges of Mafia association. Tapes revealed Palazzolo urging his sister Sara to put pressure on Marcello Dell'UtriMarcello Dell'Utri
Marcello Dell'Utri is an influential Italian politician and senior advisor to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi...
to derail attempts to extradite him South Africa, and offering to cut Dell'Utri in on construction deals in Angola. "Don't worry, you don't have to convert him, he's already been converted", Palazzolo said about Dell’Utri – implying that Dell'Utri was a member of the Mafia. Not long afterwards, in April 2004, the extradition request was shelved.Berlusconi loyalist was 'solid ally of the Mafia' cause, The Independent, April 27, 2006Mafia cops can't go after Palazzolo – yet, Sapa, March 23, 2004 Il boss Palazzolo: Dell'Utri non devi convertirlo, e' gia' convertito, Antimafia Duemila, June 28, 2010
On July 5, 2006, Palazzolo was sentenced in Palermo to nine years in prison for external collusion with the Mafia. Because he had been acquitted in 1992 for Mafia association and in concordance with the ne bis in idem
Ne bis in idem
Ne bis in idem, which translates literally from Latin as "not twice in the same", means that no legal action can be instituted twice for the same cause of action...
principle (the double jeopardy
Double jeopardy
Double jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same, or similar charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction...
clause in common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
jurisdictions) he could not been judged for the same crime twice. Nove anni a Vito Palazzolo era il finanziere di Cosa nostra, La Repubblica, July 6, 2006 Italy asked for Palazzolo to be extradited but the South African justice department said it would only begin processing the extradition request once his appeal against that conviction was finalised.Have the Mafia moved to SA?, Cape Argus, September 30, 2008 On July 11, 2007, the Court of Appeal in Palermo changed the conviction from external collusion into Mafia association while maintaining the nine-year-prison sentence. The Court of Appeal argued that new evidence by a range of pentiti since the original acquittal for Mafia association in 1992 justified the aggravating conviction.
The court of last resort in Italy, the Supreme Court of Cassation
Court of Cassation (Italy)
The Supreme Court of Cassation is the major court of last resort in Italy. It has its seat in the Rome Hall of Justice.The Court of Cassation exists also to “ensure the observation and the correct interpretation of law” by ensuring the same application of law in the inferior and appeal courts...
, confirmed the nine-year sentence for Mafia association in March 2009. According to several pentiti
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
(collaborating state witnesses) such as Francesco Di Carlo
Francesco Di Carlo
Francesco Di Carlo is a member of the Mafia who turned state witness in 1996...
, Salvatore Cancemi
Salvatore Cancemi
Salvatore Cancemi was a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He would be the first member of the Sicilian Mafia Commission that turned himself in voluntarily and became a pentito, a collaborator with the Italian judicial authorities...
, Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca
Giovanni Brusca is a former member of the Sicilian Mafia. He murdered the anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone in 1992 and once stated that he had committed between 100 and 200 murders but was unable to remember the exact number...
and Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino Giuffrè
Antonino "Nino" Giuffrè is an Italian mafioso from Caccamo in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. He became one of the most important Mafia turncoats after his arrest in April 2002....
, Palazzolo is a member of Cosa Nostra made in the Mafia family of Partinico
Partinico
Partinico is a town and comune in the province of Palermo, Sicily, southern Italy...
. Concorso esterno. Ma l’imputato è mafioso, Antimafia Duemila, Anno VI Numero 4 - 2006 N°50 His lawyers denounced the Italian Government at the European Court of Human Rights for the violations that have been committed with regards to Palazzolo. Il tesoriere di Riina si iscrive a Facebook, La Repubblica (Edition Palermo), June 25, 2009 Il tesoriere di Riina scrive all'Antimafia: "Voglio essere ascoltato, sono una vittima", La Repubblica (Palermo), December 4, 2010 On December 16, 2010, the Court in Caltannisseta accepted a review of the nine-year conviction requested by the lawyers of Palazzolo claiming double jeopardy
Double jeopardy
Double jeopardy is a procedural defense that forbids a defendant from being tried again on the same, or similar charges following a legitimate acquittal or conviction...
. Boss Palazzolo, processo da rifare 'Due sentenze per lo stesso reato', La Repubblica, December 17, 2010
Palazzolo's denials
Palazzolo has always denied that he is involved in organised crime, has any links to the Mafia, nor enjoys close relations with politicians in the government. In 1992, a court in Rome had found him not guilty of being a member of the Mafia. "I was acquitted of Mafia charges, but I am always the 'alleged Mafia don' and it is disturbing to be portrayed that way to family and friends," Palazzolo maintains. He hired a public relations adviser, Aldo Sarullo, a former actor, playwright and director, who advised Palermo's Antimafia mayor, Leoluca OrlandoLeoluca Orlando
Leoluca Orlando , is an Italian politician, who was mayor of Palermo in 1985-1990 and 1993-2000. He is best known for his strong opposition to the Sicilian Mafia.-Biography:Orlando was born in Palermo...
, and later Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
's party Forza Italia
Forza Italia
Forza Italia was a liberal-conservative, Christian democratic, and liberal political party in Italy, with a large social democratic minority, that was led by Silvio Berlusconi, four times Prime Minister of Italy....
, to change his image as a Mafia boss.Alleged mafia don hires image consultant, The Guardian, June 30, 2004
In an interview with the Italian news agency ANSA in July 2009 he denied that he was the so-called treasurer for former Cosa Nostra bosses Riina and Provenzano. He said that "for me it is a great dishonour to be considered the treasurer of Riina and Provenzano, two of the biggest criminals Italy has known. It is shameful to be accused of managing the wealth of these two men, whom I have never met. Perhaps others are proud of being associated with them, like state's witnesses, but not me." He challenged "the Italian police or any police, even the secret service, to produce one single transaction I am alleged to have carried out on behalf of Provenzano or Riina." Palazzolo claims he had been "persecuted" by Italian magistrates based on testimony given by crime figures who had turned state's witnesses.Fugitive Refutes Mafia Ties, ANSA, July 1, 2009
Extradition denied
In January 2007 the Italian government requested the extradition of Palazzolo after the nine-year sentence was handed down by the Italian court for collusion with the Mafia. This was the sixth request from the Italians since 1992.Department of Justice accused of bias against Palazzolo, The Cape Times, May 19, 2010 Palazzolo wen stryd teen uitlewering, Die Burger, June 15, 2010 In June 2010, the High Court of South Africa blocked the extradition of Palazzolo due to lack of double criminality requirement as South Africa does not recognize the crime of Mafia association as conceived in Italy. Moreover, the Court also found double jeopardy as Palazzolo had already been acquitted of Mafia association in 1992 by a court in Rome. For the Italian authorities Palazzolo remains a fugitive from justice. Il Sudafrica nega l'estradizione di Palazzolo, La Repubblica, June 19, 2010In September 2010, Palazzolo opened a website to counter the allegations against him. He maintains that he is wrongly persecuted by the Italian judicial authorities. According to Palazzolo he is the victim of "a politically-charged vendetta that has been waged against me by lawyers, crusading politicians, journalists and opportunists who have climbed onto the bandwagon. It is based on a scourge of hearsay, aspersions, half truths, legal twists, inventions and total fabrications. The rule of law has been subverted for the principle of 'success' in the war against crime. Justice has become about newspaper headlines. The political careers of the leading lights in this war have taken on a life of their own, overriding any legal obstacles in securing a conviction against me. I was scooped up in their nets and dished up to the media as proof of their success in the fight against organised crime."
External links
- Vito Roberto Palazzolo's Website Vito Roberto Palazzolo è un latitante, ma vive libero in Sudafrica, Antimafia Duemila, N° 28, January 2003 Concorso esterno. Ma l’imputato è mafioso, by Monica Centofante, Antimafia Duemila, N°50, 2006