Alleged hit man here 2 years

Italian embassy disputes Canadian officials' claims that they weren't told of warrant

Paul Cherry / The Gazette

Canadian authorities were alerted that a suspected Mafia hit man wanted for murder was living in Montreal long before he was arrested, says a spokesman for the Italian embassy in Ottawa.

That contradicts claims by Immigration Canada officials at the alleged killer's detention hearings last week that they had only become aware of charges against Gaetano Amodeo last November.

Amodeo, 48, was arrested Feb. 20 by the RCMP based on information in two European warrants alleging murder.

One of those warrants was filed more than two years ago in a court in Palermo, Italy, where two informants alleged that Amodeo committed murder and attempted murder on Jan. 12, 1991, in the Sicilian province Agrigento.

When the warrants were filed in Palermo, authorities there were also tipped off that Amodeo was living in Montreal.

The information was accurate, as Amodeo was living so freely in Canada that he crossed the U.S. border often between 1996 and May 1998, having his passport stamped each time.

All the while, his wife was officially registered as the administrator of a jewelry store in the north end of the city.

Amodeo appears to have tried to avoid detection once the warrants in Palermo were issued.

He did not turn up for an interview with immigration officials in March 1999. His wife claimed that he had traveled back to Sicily for health reasons.

During two detention hearings in Montreal after his arrest, Immigration Canada officials claimed they were only made aware that Amodeo was a wanted man when Interpol circulated an arrest warrant issued Nov. 13, 2000, by a court in Germany.

That warrant alleges he murdered a man in 1981.

Amodeo is in custody now while he awaits an extradition hearing.

A spokesman for Immigration Canada said last week that authorities here only learned in January of the charges filed in Italy.

"The documents that we have indicate that it is only in January 2001 that Immigration (Canada) became aware of those warrants in Italy and in Germany," the spokesman said after Amodeo's second detention hearing.

"As far as we know, there was no Interpol warrant from the Italian authorities."

The spokesman was summarizing what Jean-Denis St. Pierre, a representative of the immigration minister, said before an adjudicator during the detention hearing.

But the Italian embassy in Ottawa has sent a letter to both the National Post newspaper and Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan asking that the record be set straight.

"In the letter we affirm that it is not true that Italian authorities failed to alert Interpol of the 1999 arrest warrants," said Giuseppina Zarra, a spokesman for the embassy.

"The Italian minister of justice informed Interpol on Sept. 27, 1999, of an extradition request that was submitted to Canadian authorities. The same information was passed on to Interpol by the Italian foreign ministry on Oct. 4, 1999."

The Gazette was unable to contact representatives from Immigration Canada yesterday.

An article by Toronto journalist Antonio Nicaso, which appeared yesterday in the Italian-language newspaper Corriere Canadese, quotes an Italian magistrate who claims the RCMP could have arrested Amodeo several months ago but were prevented by Canadian red tape.

The Italian magistrate, Luca Cresente, told Nicaso in an interview that the RCMP confirmed Amodeo's presence in Montreal as early as April 1999. The police force issued a statement to the magistrate stating that they had located him.

According to the magistrate, the RCMP were unable to arrest Amodeo in April 1999 because they did not have a formal extradition request from the Italian government.

The magistrate also said that by the time all the proper paperwork was filed, Amodeo disappeared from the RCMP's radar.

The magistrate also said the Mounties located the suspected hit man again last year but had to ask for a new extradition request, which caused further delays in rounding up the man described as "armed and violent" in the Interpol warrant.

March 8, 2001