A Thai court has approved Vito Palazzolo's extradition to Italy.
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A Thai court has approved Vito Palazzolo’s extradition to Italy, just hours after a Western Cape High Court order was issued compelling the SA government to make it clear whether or not they would treat him as an SA citizen, and help him fight extradition to that country.
On Thursday, Palazzolo’s son and attorneys launched an urgent court application in Cape Town demanding that SA’s departments of International Relations and Co-operation, and Home Affairs, give him the full diplomatic protection to which he was entitled as a legal SA citizen.
But the order may have come too late, because the Thai courts ruled yesterday that the extradition would go ahead, international media reports said.
“I’m sure he will appeal, because if he goes back to Italy he’s in trouble,” police Colonel Chartchai Eimsaeng, the Thai immigration police’s deputy chief of investigation, was quoted as saying. He added that the appeal process “could take a year”.
Asked to comment,
Palazzolo’s attorney, Norman Snitcher, said yesterday he had not been advised of actual developments in court, and did not want to comment based purely on press reports.
Thursday’s Western Cape High Court application was launched under Palazzolo’s other name, Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko, the name in which his SA passport was issued.
In papers, Palazzolo’s son, Christian von Palace Kolbatschenko, said his father’s attorneys had advised that he stood a greater chance of fighting his extradition to Italy, to serve a nine-year prison sentence for a conviction of having Mafia associations, if the embassy was to confirm he was an SA citizen, had been travelling on a SA passport, and was entitled to return to SA in terms of Section 21 of the constitution.
He accused the South Africans of “official foot-dragging”.
Judge Ashley Binns-Ward granted an order compelling the Department of International Relations to provide this information to the Thai authorities, or give reasons why they would not do so. He also ordered the government to pay the costs of the court application.
Christian said in papers that the application was urgent, as the Thai authorities had already indicated that his father would be extradited on April 12. This had been delayed only because they were awaiting the return of a Thai official from the US, who was due to return yesterday.
It also emerged that Palazzolo’s wife had travelled to Thailand prior to his court appearance yesterday, and had bought a plane ticket for Palazzolo, anticipating his return to SA.
The court papers also painted a picture of the circumstances under which Palazzolo had been arrested, and the conditions under which he was being held.
They said he arrived in Thailand on March 15 to spend time with his sons Christian and Pietro.
On March 16, Italian Interpol forwarded an extradition request to the Thai police. On March 19, and unbeknown to him, Palazzolo’s visa was cancelled by Thai authorities. According to the court papers, he was only informed of this on March 30, when he was arrested while trying to board a flight back to SA.
In answering papers before the court, the Department of Home Affairs said Palazzolo’s Italian citizenship had not been disputed in his papers, and that it appeared that his application for SA citizenship had been “legally flawed”.
Investigations also revealed that Palazzolo had two active SA passports in the Kolbatschenko name.
Palazzolo entered SA in 1986 using a Swiss passport, under the name Frapolli, and in 1992 used a Paraguay passport.
In addition, there was no record of Palazzolo leaving the country from a legal port of entry.
Department of International Relations spokesman Clayson Monyela said yesterday that the department’s legal team was studying the order, and could not comment on it immediately. - Saturday Argus
bianca.capazorio@inl.co.za