The Federal Justice Office has authorised the extradition to Italy of two members of the ‘Ndrangheta, a mafia organisation based in Calabria in the south of the country. They had been arrested on March 8 in canton Valais in an operation which captured 15 Calabrian mafiosi living in Switzerland.
The Italian extradition requests are based on a judgement released in October 2014 by a Calabrian court. The two Italian citizens had been sentenced in their absence to nine and six years in prison respectively.
The justice office said in a statement on Wednesday that the conditions for extradition had been fulfilled. The two Italians have 30 days to appeal to the federal criminal court.
The fate of 13 other mafiosi – also arrested on March 8 in cantons Thurgau and Zurich – has not been decided. They are currently free, having had to post bail and give up their passports.
The arrest in March was not without controversy. Italian police showed a video of Italian officers making the arrests, which goes against Swiss law.