ANKARA, Oct 13 (AFP) - A three-man Turkish police team is in Vienna to bring back a top mafia boss after an Austrian court ruled for his extradition to his homeland to stand trial, the Anatolia news agency reported Wednesday.
The team is expected back in Turkey with Alaattin Cakici on Thursday or Friday, the report said.
The 51-year-old Cakici, who has been sought by Turkey and Interpol since 2002, was arrested in July near the southern Austrian city of Graz in possession of a fake passport.
Last week, a Vienna court said he should be sent home to face charges including murder, a ruling made possible by Turkey's 2002 decision to abolish capital punishment.
Cakici is one of Turkey's most wanted criminals who has previously claimed links with Turkey's intelligence services and said he was protected by politicians.
A former member of the Grey Wolves, a violent group of nationalist extremists, Cakici spent most of the 1990s on the run.
In September 1998, he was sentenced to six months in jail in France for falsifying a passport and identity card.
In December 1999, France extradited him to Turkey on condition that he would not stand trial for offences carrying the death penalty.
As a result, he was never tried for the alleged murders of his wife, a former associate and three other people.
He spent three years behind bars for membership of a criminal organisation, but a 1999 amnesty allowed him to escape a second three-year term for ordering an attack on a journalist.