On The Run For 16 Years… Until He Showed Up At The Olympics

MILAN, Feb 12 (Reuters) – The writing was on the wall – and had the man’s passion for ice hockey been matched by a love of Italian music he may have spotted it.

Milan police arrested a 44-year-old Slovak national on Wednesday evening, acting on a warrant issued against him by Italian prosecutors 16 years earlier, the local Carabinieri police force said in a statement.

To Italians, the case echoes the plot of “The Bandit and the Champion”, a famous ballad inspired by early 20th-century outlaw Sante Pollastri, which tells of a criminal captured at a cycling event, after a years-long manhunt, as he turned up to watch a childhood friend cross the finish line.

Despite being on the Italian police wanted list, the Slovak man returned to the country to follow the national hockey team at the Winter Olympics, the Carabinieri said.

Police tracked down the man after he checked in at a guesthouse on the outskirts of Milan and took him to the central San Vittore prison.

The man, who had planned to attend Slovakia’s opening ice hockey game on Wednesday, has 11 months and seven days to serve for a string of shop thefts he committed in 2010, the Carabinieri said.

Slovakia’s men’s hockey team debuted at the Milano Cortina Games on Wednesday with a 4-1 win over Finland at Milan’s Santagiulia Arena.