Mafia don gives up battle to stay here
Commisso faces 10-year prison term back in Italy
Waives extradition hearing; police will escort him back

DALE ANNE FREED
 

A powerful Mafia don, a one-time resident of Hollywood Hills Circle in Vaughan, will be extradited to Italy under police escort in the next few days.

Antonio Commisso, 49, waived his right to an extradition hearing and will be returned to Italy under police escort to face a 10-year sentence for Mafia association, according to an extradition document he signed yesterday.

He will be held at the Metro West Detention Centre until his departure.

Commisso will be escorted back to Italy by members of the Italian police and officers of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit within the next few days, RCMP Inspector Glenn Hanna said outside court yesterday. But due to security concerns authorities were tight-lipped on exactly when.

Robin Parker, the federal Crown attorney on the case, was accompanied in court by police officers during Commisso's previous appearances, said Morris Pistyner, director of the federal prosecution service in Toronto, after court yesterday.

Although Commisso once described his occupation in Italy as "tour operator," Italian court documents state he was "head of a dangerous, bloodthirsty Mafia association which ... imposed on the town of Siderno the burden of a permanent criminal presence."

Commisso was considered "a figure of extraordinary criminal importance ... at the top of a vertical structure" of a criminal organization that practised drug trafficking, robbery and enforcement violence, the documents state.

At the request of his lawyer, James Fleming, Commisso's hearing was held out of sight of the media and the public.

On Aug. 18, 1974, Commisso was granted permanent resident status in Canada, when he had no criminal record. But he lost his status when he returned to Italy shortly after. In April 2004, an appeal of his conviction was denied by Italy's Supreme Court.

Commisso then travelled to Zurich, then Montreal, in May of last year.

"I was surprised to know that a fugitive was able to enter Canada, get a driver's licence, obtain a mortgage and buy a house," said organized crime expert and author Antonio Nicaso in an interview yesterday.

"That really is a question mark on the Canadian screening system. He used his own name to obtain a driver's licence, he kept his name in the phone book. He never hid himself here."

Commisso applied for permanent residency again in 2004 but was denied because he had not maintained residency requirements. He was in the midst of appealing that decision.

Commisso was arrested in Canada on June 27 by members of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement unit.

Toronto Star -- July 28, 2005