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MAFIA

UK judge says mafia fugitive free to go home

A judge in Britain told convicted mafia boss Domenico Rancadore on Thursday that he was free to return to his life in the London suburbs, after prosecutors said they would not appeal a ruling that blocked his extradition to Italy.

UK judge says mafia fugitive free to go home
Domenico Rancadore was arrested in Britain last year after 20 years on the run. Photo: Justin Tallis/AFP

Rancadore, who was arrested in Britain last year after 20 years on the run, won his legal fight against extradition on March 17th on the basis that returning to Italy's overcrowded prisons would breach his human rights.

At a hearing in London on Thursday, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirmed that it had lodged an appeal but that it was not served within the statutory time limit and was therefore being withdrawn.

"You're free to go as far as this court is concerned," judge Quentin Purdy said.

Rancadore, 65, known as "The Professor", was sentenced in Italy in his absence in 1999 to seven years in prison for associating with the mafia.

When he was arrested in August, it emerged he had been living for the past 20 years in the London suburbs with his wife and two children, under a false name, Marc Skinner.

Rancadore was in court on Thursday to hear he was being freed. Dressed in a dark suit with gold buttons, striped tie and a white shirt, he said "yes, yes, thank you" before leaving the courtroom.

His wife Anne Skinner said she was "relieved to have her husband home".

"We're normal people. My husband really hasn't done anything wrong. He's not what he's been portrayed as," she said.

 "We want to get our lives back and get back to normal. I want to be able to go into Sainsbury's (supermarket) and not be pointed at.

"I'm just happy he's home. He can go out and look after his garden now."

SEE ALSO: Arrested mafia boss 'spread terror in Sicily'

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COURT

French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts

A French court has ordered Twitter to give activists full access to all its documents relating to efforts to combat racism, sexism and other forms of hate speech on the social network.

French court orders Twitter to reveal anti-hate speech efforts
Photo: Alastair Pike | AFP

Six anti-discrimination groups had taken Twitter to court in France last year, accusing the US social media giant of “long-term and persistent” failures in blocking hateful comments from the site.

The Paris court ordered Twitter to grant the campaign groups full access to all documents relating to the company’s efforts to combat hate speech since May 2020. The ruling applies to Twitter’s global operation, not just France.

Twitter must hand over “all administrative, contractual, technical or commercial documents” detailing the resources it has assigned to fighting homophobic, racist and sexist discourse on the site, as well as “condoning crimes against humanity”.

The San Francisco-based company was given two months to comply with the ruling, which also said it must reveal how many moderators it employs in France to examine posts flagged as hateful, and data on the posts they process.

The ruling was welcomed by the Union of French Jewish Students (UEJF), one of the groups that had taken the social media giant to court.

“Twitter will finally have to take responsibility, stop equivocating and put ethics before profit and international expansion,” the UEJF said in a statement on its website.

Twitter’s hateful conduct policy bans users from promoting violence, or threatening or attacking people based on their race, religion, gender identity or disability, among other forms of discrimination.

Like other social media businesses it allows users to report posts they believe are hateful, and employs moderators to vet the content.

But anti-discrimination groups have long complained that holes in the policy allow hateful comments to stay online in many cases.

French prosecutors on Tuesday said they have opened an investigation into a wave of racist comments posted on Twitter aimed at members of the country’s national football team.

The comments, notably targeting Paris Saint-Germain star Kylian Mbappe, were posted after France was eliminated from the Euro 2020 tournament last week.

France has also been having a wider public debate over how to balance the right to free speech with preventing hate speech, in the wake of the controversial case of a teenager known as Mila.

The 18-year-old sparked a furore last year when her videos, criticising Islam in vulgar terms, went viral on social media.

Thirteen people are on trial accused of subjecting her to such vicious harassment that she was forced to leave school and was placed under police protection.

While President Emmanuel Macron is among those who have defended her right to blaspheme, left-wing critics say her original remarks amounted to hate speech against Muslims.

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