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Slovakia to extradite Italian suspect named by murdered journalist

Slovak prosecutors decided on Friday to extradite an Italian businessman wanted in Italy on drugs charges, who was also named by murdered journalist Jan Kuciak in an explosive report on alleged high-level corruption linked to the mafia.

Published: 4 May 2018 14:34 CEST
Slovakia to extradite Italian suspect named by murdered journalist
Police outside a house linked to Italian businessman Antonin Vadala in Slovakia. Photo: Roman Hanc/News Agency of the Slovak Republic (TASR)/AFP

Police arrested Antonino Vadala, the owner of several companies based in Slovakia, in March in connection with a European arrest warrant issued by Italy last year over alleged drug trafficking. Vadala also faces charges of attempted EU subsidy fraud in Slovakia. He has flatly denied the allegations, which were first made public in Kuciak's article.

The Italian had been detained and released earlier in March month over the alleged fraud.

“The Regional Prosecutor's Office of Kosice on Friday issued a decision to execute the European arrest warrant issued by a court in Venice against the Italian entrepreneur Antonin Vadala,” spokesman Milan Filicko said in a statement, using another name for Antonino Vadala.

“The legal deadline for the physical handover of the person to the competent Italian authorities is 10 days,” Filicko said, adding that Vadala had not appealed against the extradition.

READ ALSO: Murdered Slovak journalist was 'investigating Italian mafia'


Photo: Vladimir Simicek/AFP

Vadala's name was mentioned several times in Kuciak's last unfinished investigative report, which was published after the journalist and his fiancee were found shot dead at their home near Bratislava in late February.

The murders and the article sparked nationwide anti-government protests in the EU country of 5.4 million people, forcing the resignation in March of populist prime minister Robert Fico. Kuciak's article raised possible political links to Italian businessmen with alleged ties to Calabria's notorious 'Ndrangheta mafia, supposedly operating in eastern Slovakia.

The EU member's National Criminal Agency (NAKA) investigator began criminal proceeding against Valdala in April. He is alleged to have attempted to trick the Slovak Agriculture Paying Agency to pay out subsidies amounting to roughly €120,000 through one of his companies. He falsely declared liabilities connected with the conditions for the agricultural subsidies to be paid.

Organizers have called another anti-government protest for Friday to honour the memory of the murdered couple on the eve of their wedding that was supposed to take place on May 5th. 

READ ALSO: Press freedom in Italy: Key things to know


Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

CRIME

Indians march to end ‘slavery’ after worker death shakes Italy

Thousands of Indian farm labourers urged an end to "slavery" in Italy on Tuesday after the gruesome death of a worker shone a light on the brutal exploitation of undocumented migrants.

Published: 26 June 2024 09:00 CEST
Indians march to end 'slavery' after worker death shakes Italy

Satnam Singh, 31, who had been working without legal papers, died last week after his arm was sliced off by a machine. The farmer he was working for dumped him by the road, along with his severed limb.

“He was thrown out like a dog. There is exploitation every day, we suffer it every day, it must end now,” said Gurmukh Singh, head of the Indian community in the Lazio region of central Italy.

“We come here to work, not to die,” he told AFP.

Children held up colourful signs reading “Justice for Satnam Singh” as the procession snaked through Latina, a city in a rural area south of Rome that is home to tens of thousands of Indian migrant workers.

Indians have worked in the Agro Pontino – the Pontine Marshes – since the mid-1980s, harvesting pumpkins, leeks, beans and tomatoes, and working on flower farms or in buffalo mozzarella production.

Singh’s death is being investigated, but it has sparked a wider debate in Italy over how to tackle systemic abuses in the agriculture sector, where use of undocumented workers and their abuse by farmers or gangmasters is rife.

“Satnam died in one day, I die every day. Because I too am a labour victim,” said Parambar Singh, whose eye was seriously hurt in a work accident.

“My boss said he couldn’t take me to hospital because I didn’t have a contract,” said the 33-year-old, who has struggled to work since.

“I have been waiting 10 months for justice,” he said.

Paid a pittance

The workers get paid an average of 20 euros ($21) a day for up to 14 hours labour, according to the Osservatorio Placido Rizzotto, which analyses working conditions in the agriculture industry.

Far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has sought to reduce the number of undocumented migrants to Italy, while increasing pathways for legal migration for non-EU workers to tackle labour shortages.

But according to the Confagricoltura agribusiness association, only around 30 percent of workers given a visa actually travel to Italy, meaning there are never enough labourers to meet farmers’ needs.

This month, Meloni said Italy’s visa system was being exploited by organised crime groups to smuggle in illegal migrants.

She condemned the circumstances of Singh’s death, saying they were “inhumane acts that do not belong to the Italian people”.

“I hope that this barbarism will be harshly punished,” she told her cabinet ministers last week.

Italy’s financial police identified nearly 60,000 undocumented workers from January 2023 to June 2024.

But Italy’s largest trade union CGIL estimates that as many as 230,000 people – over a quarter of the country’s seasonal agricultural workers – do not have a contract.

While some are Italian, most are undocumented foreigners.

Female workers fare particularly badly, earning even less than their male counterparts and in some cases suffering sexual exploitation, it says.

“We all need regular job contracts, not to be trapped in this slavery,” said Kaur Akveer, a 37-year-old who was part of a group of women in colourful saris marching behind the community leaders.

“Satnam was like my brother. He must be the last Indian to die,” she said.

By AFP’s Ella Ide

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