Separate attempts by two government departments to deport the alleged Mafioso Vito Palazzolo from South Africa are in danger of backfiring.
The Cape Town Regional Court this week heard that authorities had discriminated against him.
Palazzolo is accused of lying in his May 1994 citizenship application. But it emerged soon after the start of his much-postponed immigration fraud trial on Monday that the criminal charge had been brought while an administrative review based on the same claims was still under way. This, implied Palazzolo’s lawyers, prejudiced their client.
As a result of the defence contention, the trial, originally set down for the whole week, was adjourned to March 14 so the state could consult further.
The actions in dispute were brought by the Department of Home Affairs under the then director-general Billy Masetlha in March 2000 and by Bulelani Ngcuka’s national prosecutions authority the same year.
In both cases it is alleged that when Palazzolo applied for South African citizenship in May 1994 he failed to disclose a Swiss conviction for drug-related money laundering, though he had lost an appeal. The state also claims Palazzolo was a fugitive from justice facing warrants of arrest in Italy and the United States for Mafia and drug-related crimes.
It is alleged that when Palazzolo entered South Africa in 1986 he had escaped from jail in Switzerland while on a 36-hour Christmas parole and that he had used the passport of a fellow inmate.
Little of this was raised in court this week as the trial focused on how South African authorities had treated Palazzolo. The court heard that Palazzolo would not have had to apply for South African citizenship because his Ciskeian citizenship should have qualified him automatically.
Jan Heunis, Palazzolo’s advocate, argued that home affairs documents clearly showed that by April 1994 the authorities had changed their position about the earlier refusal of citizenship, but had failed to inform his client. This, in addition to the special attention given to Palazzolo at ministerial and Cabinet level during 1993 and early 1994, amounted to discrimination, he said.