SUSPECTED MOB FIGURE WON'T BE RETURNED TO ITALY

A U.S. court, citing the risk of torture, denies Italy's request to
extradite Rosario Gambino. He served 22 years behind bars on a
conviction for heroin trafficking. The U.S. wanted to deport him --
and Italy wanted him back.

But there was a problem: His name was Rosario Gambino, with alleged
ties to the infamous Gambino crime family.

If removed to his native country, a Los Angeles-area immigration
judge ruled, Gambino likely would be arrested and locked up in a
prison system designed to physically and psychologically compel
criminals like him to reveal information about the Sicilian Mafia.

"This . . . coercion is not related to any lawfully imposed sanction
or punishment, and thus constitutes torture," Judge D.D. Sitgraves
wrote in his opinion, issued Sept. 11.

Gambino could stay in the country, the judge decided.

P. Joseph Sandoval, Gambino's attorney, said the judge's ruling,
based on the United Nations Convention Against Torture, was "100% correct."

"It's a humanitarian issue," Sandoval said. "The prison conditions in
his specific case will be life-threatening and life-shortening."

This month, Sandoval filed a petition in federal court to have his
client released from an immigration detention center in San Pedro,
where he has been held for the last year, after his release from
federal prison.

"If it wasn't because of my name," Gambino said through his attorney,
"I would already be out."

But Gambino, according to some immigration attorneys, has already
proved more fortunate than most.

Such relief, citing the threat of torture, is granted infrequently,
according to the Executive Office of Immigration Review, which
oversees the immigration courts. Last year, judges nationwide
approved 578 petitions and denied 15,905.

Immigration attorneys say the outcome of such cases can be arbitrary,
depending on the judge, the attorneys and the person's native country.

In recent years, attorneys increasingly have pushed to get relief for
foreign-born gang members facing deportation but are rarely successful.

"It does make you wonder why aren't more Convention Against Torture
cases being granted for people from Central America, given the
countries' conditions and how poorly suspected gang members are
treated by the government," said Alan Diamante, a Los Angeles
immigration attorney

Diamante had two such cases recently.

A Honduran former gangster who previously had been deported and had a
criminal record won his case.

But an 18th Street gang member with drug-related convictions lost,
despite testimony that he would face grave danger if deported. Within
weeks of returning to El Salvador, he was killed.

But Gambino himself is not in the clear.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has filed an appeal of his case.

The agency also plans to contest any attempt to have Gambino released
from custody, said spokeswoman Virginia Kice.

"He is detained because we believe he poses a potential threat to the
community," Kice said. "First, he was convicted of heroin trafficking
and second, he has ties to a notorious and ruthless crime family."

Gambino denies any connection to organized crime, though he has been
referred to in court documents from his 1984 criminal trial as a
"soldier" of the Gambino crime family, and testimony from this year's
immigration trial revealed that the Italian government considers him
a member of the Sicilian Mafia.

Mafia expert Jerry Capeci said in an interview that Gambino -- cousin
of the late mob boss Carlo Gambino -- is not a "made" member in the
United States and doesn't have much sway in the family because he has
been in prison for more than 20 years.

"But his two brothers are made members of the crime family, and there
is no question that he has some influence in the family," said
Capeci, author of several books about the Mafia.

The Italian government attempted to extradite Gambino in 2001, based
on an in absentia conviction for drug trafficking. The U.S. District
Court in California denied the request because Gambino had already
been acquitted on similar charges in New York. Gambino still has a
pending Italian arrest warrant, Italian government officials said.

"We are talking about a bad guy -- someone who is wanted by Italian
officials," said Luigi Rinella, an Italian national police liaison
officer, in a telephone interview.

Rinella called Gambino "a member of a very important La Cosa Nostra
family in New York" who took part in a major drug-trafficking
operation between Italy and the United States in the 1980s.

Rinella said there was no guarantee that Gambino would be locked up
in the special prison system, known as 41-bis. The prison system,
which keeps Mafia members in isolation, was designed by the Italian
government to ensure that people with links to organized crime could
not give orders from behind bars, Rinella said.

The 41-bis prisons are harsh, he added, but inmates are not tortured.
"We don't have torture in Italy," he said.

Sandoval said the issue was not whether Italy engages in torture, but
whether inmates in the 41-bis prison system are subjected to "cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment" that has nothing to do with their
punishment. Gambino's immigration trial took place in San Pedro in
February and featured testimony from an expert in solitary
confinement, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and a former FBI agent.

"The environment in 41-bis does produce an opportunity for some of
the law enforcement agents . . . to engender psychological and
physical coercion on the detainees in order to obtain from them
cooperation in the official fight against organized crime," said
DePaul University law professor M. Cherif Bassiouni, who was
nominated for a peace prize for his role in the creation of an
International Criminal Court.

Bassiouni said he had no doubt that Gambino would be arrested in
Italy and that "his return would be heralded as a great triumph over
organized crime."

Several witnesses, including a former FBI agent hired by Gambino to
assess his risk in Italy, testified that Gambino likely would be
placed in the 41-bis regime and be coerced into revealing information
about Mafia members in Italy and the U.S.

In addition, Gambino suffers from medical problems that would be
exacerbated by the limited care and extensive time in solitary
confinement, according to the testimony.

In her closing statement, government attorney Michelle Phillips-Myers
wrote that the Italian government "actively opposes" torture. If
Gambino is sentenced to the 41-bis regime, she wrote, it should be
considered a "lawful sanction with a legitimate purpose of protecting
public safety and preventing criminal activity."