Italy's 'last Godfather' who spent 30 years on the run left in irreversible coma

22 September 2023 , 20:43

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Matteo Messina Denaro is in an irreversible coma, hospital sources said (Image: CARABINIERI HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

A notorious Mafia boss who was caught earlier this year after 30 years on the run is in an irreversible coma and doctors are planning to end his nutrition this evening, hospital sources have revealed.

Matteo Messina Denaro, who was once dubbed "the last godfather of the Sicilian Mafia", has been in the prison ward of L'Aquila hospital for over a month. The 61-year-old fugitive was found at the beginning of the year after decades on the run in a cancer clinic in Palermo, Sicily, using a false identity.

This evening, sources from the hospital said the criminal will not come out of the coma and doctors will end his nutrition. Italian news agency Ansa reported on Friday evening that the intestinal surgery Denaro underwent on August 8 was successful, but his advanced colon cancer caused an irreversible deterioration in his state of health. The mobster, who was using the false name Andrea Bonafede while on the run, was first diagnosed with cancer at the end of 2020.

The Mafia boss was arrested in Palermo in January (CARABINIERI HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

According to Italian media, the mobster had not been able to feed himself for days, and on September 12 his treatments were suspended, while painkiller treatments continued to be carried out. In his living will, Messina Denaro expressed his will not to undergo aggressive treatment with the use of machines to keep him alive.

Because of this, doctors decided, with his family's consent, to carry on pain therapy but stop chemotherapy. SkyTG24 reports that Messina Denaro's relatives were allowed to visit him in the past few weeks, but visits have now been suspended.

Baby boy has spent his life in hospital as doctors are 'scared' to discharge him

After being caught, Messina Denaro also officially recognised his daughter Lorenza, who was born in 1996, while he was hiding from the police. She is now his official heir and has changed her surname from Alagna - her mother's surname - to Messina Denaro. The pair met for the first time in the high-security prison where the Mafia boss is being kept.

The Cosa Nostra boss, who once boasted he could have filled a cemetery with those he had killed, has been convicted for his involvement in dozens of murders, including the 1992 bombings that killed anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. He was also condemned for the killing of 12-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo, the son of a mobster-turned-State witness who was strangled and dissolved in acid in 1996.

Messina Denaro was on the run for 30 years (ANSA/AFP via Getty Images)

Italy's most wanted mobster was finally caught this year (ANSA/AFP via Getty Images)

Messina Denaro, who reportedly enjoyed orgies with Palermo women while on the run, was also behind bombings at art and religious sites in Milan, Florence, and Rome that killed 10 people and hurt 40 more in 1993. His reputation as a ruthless Mafia boss was confirmed when he murdered a rival boss from the Sicilian city of Trapani and strangled his girlfriend who was three months pregnant.

After being asked by officers his name at the Palermo clinic where he was arrested in January, he arrogantly said: "My name is Matteo Messina Denaro." He was then dragged out of the clinic and other patients, who had been kept outside the facility for hours, clapped as the boss was taken into custody.

Following the arrest, Palermo attorney Maurizio de Lucia said: "Today is a historic day - we dedicate it to all victims of Mafia." He added: "We are very proud of the work carried out this morning which concludes a long and very delicate job.

"It is a debt that the Republic owed to the victims of the Mafia which we have paid off in part. Capturing a dangerous fugitive without violence or handcuffs is an important sign for a democratic country."

Chiara Fiorillo