A mother of two from Rochdale accused of helping to run a mafia empire in Italy was today back in Britain after agreeing a deal with Italian prosecutors.
Ann Hathaway, 44, flew into Manchester airport last night after she was handed a suspended sentence and released from a Sicilian jail after admitting to mafia associations.
This morning, a "welcome home" banner hung in the window of her terraced house in the Middleton area. No one was answering the door.
A relative, speaking from her father's home nearby, confirmed Hathaway was back on British soil but refused to give any more details.
The former dancer agreed in March to be extradited to Sicily, where she faced charges of collecting illegal earnings and laundering money for her husband, the mafia boss Antonio Rinzivillo.
Rinzivillo was jailed for 30 years in 2001 for drug trafficking and the murder of the Milan lawyer Antonio Mirabelle.
After being held in isolation at Agrigento prison, in Sicily, Hathaway was given a two-year suspended jail sentence and freed, whereupon she told reporters she had no regrets about her past. Were she able to live her life again, she would still marry her husband, she said.
"Of course I would. I love him. He is the father of my two children," she told a press conference in Italy.
Hathaway condemned conditions at the prison, saying: "This experience has destroyed me. In Agrigento jail I was kept in isolation and only had a shower three times a week. But the worst thing was the isolation. It was inhumane.
"In England, prison was completely different. It was like being in a hotel: we had a pool, I was able to use the phone and my children visited me."
Hathaway originally protested her innocence, saying tearfully at a court hearing in London that she was "bewildered" by the accusations. However, the prosecutor, Nicolo Marino, said she had since changed her stance.
"She admitted the facts of mafia association," he said. "It was difficult for her to do otherwise because it was all on tape from the intercepted telephone conversations. She has been given a suspended jail sentence but warned that she will be jailed if she commits a crime within the next five years."
Officers from Scotland Yard's extradition unit arrested Hathaway at her home in January. At the time, neighbours described her as a friendly, down-to-earth woman who "didn't look the mafia type".
According to tapped telephone conversations detailed in Italian court documents, Hathaway was heard discussing mafia business with her husband in fluent, Manchester-accented Italian sprinkled with Sicilian words.
The Italian authorities originally wanted her to stand trial as one of 88 people accused over alleged mafia activities.
Hathaway, who has two daughters aged five and 19, met Rinzivillo when she was working in Italy as a dancer. The two married nearly 27 years ago.
At one stage, Rinzivillo's power was said to be so great that he was the mafia's number two, behind the so-called godfather of godfathers, Bernardo Provenzano. He is suspected of being behind several murders.
