Anne Skinner tells court why they left Italy, where husband Domenico Rancadore faces seven years in jail for mafia links
Sicilian mafia boss Domenico Rancadore, who is fighting extradition to Italy, where he was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. Photograph: Ufficio Stampa Polizia di Stato/EPA
The wife of a fugitive mafia boss has described how they lived in London for nearly two decades under a false name to escape her husband's association with the Sicilian crime syndicate.
Anne Skinner, whose husband Domenico Rancadore is facing seven years in prison in Italy for his association with the mafia, told Westminster magistrates court on Monday that the pair fled Sicily in 1994 to create a "different life for our children".
"We wanted our children to live a different life to that where all they spoke about was mafia. We wanted a different life for our children," she said.
Rancadore, who has been described as one of the most wanted criminals in Italy, is fighting extradition to his homeland where he is facing imprisonment after being convicted in his absence of "mafia association".
The father of two was originally detained in August when British police swooped on his suburban home in Uxbridge, west London, acting on a European arrest warrant. He had been living anonymously in the capital since 1994.
Explaining why the pair fled to London in 1994, Skinner said: "We didn't want our children to live in that environment. It was very important to us. We decided to move here and my children went to school here.
"Really because we wanted our children to live a different life to that where all they spoke about was mafia. We wanted a different life for our children."
Asked why they adopted the surname Skinner, she added: "I changed my name because we wanted to get away from the surname Rancadore. We'd been through so much in Sicily, we wanted a break."
Skinner, whose father is Italian and mother is British, explained that her mother's maiden name was Skinner so she "wasn't completely cutting ties with my family".
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Rancadore, 64, listened silently to his wife's evidence from the glass-enclosed dock directly opposite the witness stand.
Wearing a shirt underneath a grey knitted jumper, the convicted former mafia boss looked tired and repeatedly rested his shaking right hand over his heart.
Italian authorities accuse Rancadore of being a member of the mafia group Cosa Nostra, collecting bribes from builders in Trabia, near Palermo.
In 1998 he was convicted in his absence of the Italian crime of mafia association between 1987 and 1995, which carries a seven-year prison term. He has been twice acquitted over the same allegation spanning different dates.
His father, who is said to have been a feared mafia leader, was imprisoned in the infamous Maxi Trial of hundreds of mafiosi in 1987, the court heard.
Quoting from a witness statement written by Rancadore, his lawyer, Alun Jones QC, said that the 64-year-old left Sicily "to get away from the whole stigma of being associated with my father's name".
He added: "Because of the shadow cast by his father's reputation, he left Italy and that echoes with what he told police – that he would be killed if he went back."
Rancadore is said to have told a Metropolitan police officer after being apprehended in his back garden in Uxbridge: "You can't send me back there, they will kill me. I've been here since 1994 and have done nothing wrong. I'm not going back."
Since 1994 Rancadore he has lived an "anonymous, settled" life in Uxbridge with his wife and daughter, helping out with his wife's travel business and chores around the house.
A former teacher in Sicily, Skinner married Rancadore in 1976 and had two children, a son in 1977 who works abroad and a daughter born in 1979 who lives at their home in Uxbridge.
Rancadore is expected to remain in Britain at least until the new year. A full extradition hearing has been scheduled for two days in February.
The judge, Howard Riddle, said Rancadore should be allowed to return home on police bail on the condition that he lives and sleeps at his address in Uxbridge, reports to the local police station twice daily, wears an electronic tag and puts up £50,000 security in case he absconds.
However, the Crown immediately appealed against this and Rancadore will be held in custody until a full appeal hearing is heard at the high court in the next week.Rancadore clutched a bible and blew a kiss to his wife as he returned to the court cells.