A Stidda (Star) Sicilian mafia boss who is one of Italy's 20 most dangerous fugitives returned to Italy from Spain Friday after a court there authorised the execution of a European arrest warrant against him Thursday.
Gioacchino Gammino, 61, had been on the run since a jail break in Italy 20 years ago.
The arrest warrant was issued by an Agrigento court in May 2014.
The Italian justice minister thanked Spanish authorities for their cooperation in dealing quickly with the case of Gammino, who was detained at Galapagar on the outskirts of Madrid on December 17.
For years he had been posing as a respectable businessman and restaurateur there.
The Stidda is a Mafia-type criminal organization centered in the central-southern part of Sicily. Members are known as stiddari or stiddaroli.
It is most active in the rural parts of southern Sicily and is partially a rival to Cosa Nostra.
Some members have a star tattooed on their bodies.
The celebrated late anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone investigated Gammino over 20 years ago, before he was slain by Cosa Nostra in 1992.
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