Word: italianizer
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...would spell his doom. Along with his son Sandro, 32, whom he'd been grooming for succession, Lo Piccolo was arrested on Nov. 5 after more than two decades as a fugitive. Convicted in absentia on multiple murder charges, Lo Piccolo was taken to an undisclosed prison on the Italian mainland, as was his son, also a convicted murderer. Their capture follows the April 2006 arrest of Bernardo Provenzano, the all-powerful Mafia boss, who evaded authorities for 43 years and is now also serving a life sentence for murder...
Taken together, these arrests deal a major blow to the Mafia. But this hydra-like organization, also known as Cosa Nostra (Our Thing), is so deeply woven into the fabric of Sicilian society that the Italian state is far from claiming final victory. "Cosa Nostra is built on a capacity to adapt to the time and situation, to camouflage itself and raise its head only when necessary," says a senior Palermo-based investigator who worked on the Lo Piccolo case. Lo Piccolo's takedown shuffles the deck in the organization, but hardly eradicates...
...Explaining the decision to appeal to the Spanish newspaper ABC, chief prosecutor Javier Zaragoza maintained that the two charges were not identical. "Different people were implicated, different criminal activities committed - the Italian conviction doesn't include all the activities of the group that developed in Spain," he said. According to Zaragoza's interpretation, Osman was involved with two separatist organizations, and can therefore be convicted separately for membership in each...
...belonged to a terrorist organization. Lead judge Javier Gómez Bermúdez, writing for the court, grounded that acquittal on the principle of non bis in idem, or double jeopardy, arguing that because Osman has already been convicted for membership in a terrorist organization by an Italian court, he cannot be found guilty for the same crime by the Spanish...
...define "firm." To be enacted, the principle of non bis in idem requires that the sentence in the first case be "firm" - that is, that it can no longer be appealed through normal judicial routes. In his sentence, Bermúdez referred twice to the firmness of the Italian conviction, justifying the acquittal in part on the assertion that the sentence that Osman received - 10 years in prison - could not be changed. However, two days before Bermúdez presented that verdict, an appeals court in Milan did just that, reducing Osman's sentence to eight years. And it turns...