Extradition proceedings against Italian mafia boss Sebastiano Brunno, arrested in Malta, will continue after a magistrate turned down his lawyers' request to declare the extradition request null.
The request was made after it emerged in court that the Catania judicial authorities had based their demand on a judgment the defence argued “did not exist”.
This afternoon Magistrate Aaron Bugeja ruled that "substance should prevail over formalities" and even though there had been a mistake in some documents, the bottom line was that Mr Brunno was wanted after being convicted for murder and the possession of weapons.
The 56-year-old Italian mafia boss had been arrested in broad daylight on the streets of Buġibba on October 2, five years after the Sicilian police mounted an extensive manhunt for him. He is known as the head of the Nardo Cosca, a branch of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.
The arrest followed an international investigation coordinated by the Catania anti-Mafia unit with the Maltese CID and Drug Squad.
Yesterday, deputy Attorney General Donatella Frendo Dimech said the Catania authorities had written to their Maltese counterparts that Mr Brunno was wanted to serve time in jail over a murder committed in April 1992 and for possession of weapons.
The Italians had previously said they also wanted Mr Brunno over an attempted murder but it now emerged that conviction on this crime had been overturned at appeal's stage.
They also realised there was a discrepancy in the actual punishment: while the official one was of life imprisonment with six months in solitary confinement, the extradition documents sent to Malta by the Italians spoke about one year in solitary confinement.
The latter was the original sentence while the former was the one amended on appeal.
Lawyers Roberto Montalto and Michaela Spiteri argued that this nullified the arrest warrant signed by Magistrate Tonio Micallef Trigona, as well as subsequent court proceedings.
But Dr Frendo Dimech hit back saying the crimes for which he was wanted were in the original request so everything still held.
Today, the magistrate ruled that the Italian and Maltese authorities' mistake was to attribute to Mr Brunno more than he did. But he could not ignore the fact that the judgment presented in the extradition proceedings confirmed him guilty of murder and weapon possession and listed the punishment.
He turned down the defence's request and ordered the continuation of the extradition proceedings.