The Italian authorities have asked France for the extradition of Edgardo Greco, convicted in Italy of murders linked to the Calabrian mafia and arrested in early February in Saint-Etienne (Loire), we learned on Wednesday from his lawyer. .
Accused of belonging to the ‘Ndrangheta and sentenced in 2006 in Italy to life imprisonment for homicide, the 63-year-old man was arrested on February 2 after sixteen years on the run, in Saint-Etienne, where he worked in Restoration. More precisely in a pizzeria.
“My client’s extradition request was transmitted yesterday (Tuesday, editor’s note) to the Lyon Court of Appeal”, declared to AFP Me Benoit Courtin, who specifies having been informed by the international service of the Lyon jurisdiction. This extradition request “has been received by the Ministry of Justice and by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It will be notified to him tomorrow (Thursday), “said the general prosecutor’s office of the Lyon Court of Appeal. Me Courtin underlined that “the initiation of this extradition procedure intervenes” when he must “plead Thursday morning a new request for release” of his client.
A “dangerous” man
On February 16, the Lyon Court of Appeal had refused the release of this man described as “dangerous” by Interpol and convicted in his country for murders committed in 1991. The court had at the same time refused his extradition, invoking a “legal obstacle” to the surrender to Italy of the fugitive, arrested by the French police thanks to the sharing of information with the Italian carabinieri, within the framework of the I-Can project (Interpol cooperation against the ‘Ndrangheta).
The Court of Appeal had explained that Edgardo Greco, currently imprisoned in a prison in the Auvergne Rhône-Alpes region, “should have been arrested on the basis of an extradition request from the Italian authorities and not in the under a European arrest warrant”. Because the facts of which he is accused date back to 1991, before the entry into force, on November 1, 1993, of the Treaty of Maastricht creating the European Union.
Edgardo Greco moved to France after his conviction in 2006, according to the general prosecutor’s office. He worked in several Italian restaurants in Saint-Etienne, where he called himself Paolo Dimitrio, with an interlude, between June and November 2021, at the head of his own Italian establishment, according to testimonies and documents consulted by AFP.