A British national was yesterday taken to court to face an Italian extradition request after he allegedly spent two years on the run.

Richard Alistair Cranston, 43, from Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire had been found guilty of drug trafficking and was sentenced to three years and 19 days in jail in Sicily.

He is insisting he had already served a year in prison before being released on condition he lived in Italy.

He had filed an appeal and won the right to get his passport back and the ability to travel, lawyer Veronique Dalli said, pointing out the authorities in Rome knew he was in Malta. However, lawyer Donatella Frendo Dimech, from the Attorney General’s Office, said if the Italian authorities knew where he was they would not have issued a European arrest warrant against him two years ago.

Magistrate Jacqueline Padovani remanded him in custody pending further extradition proceedings before Magistrate Joseph Apap Bologna.

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