Italy's 'last Godfather' who spent 30 years on the run dies months after arrest
A notorious Italian Mafia boss, who spent nearly three decades on the run, has died in custody, according to Italian media reports.
Matteo Messina Denaro, 61, was accused of orchestrating multiple horrific crimes for the Cosa Nostra Mafia group in Sicily and was the notorious group's longest-hiding fugitive. At the time of his arrest in January, he was being treated for colon cancer. As his condition worsened he was transferred to a hospital from the maximum-security prison in central Italy where he was initially held.
Denaro was dubbed "the last Godfather", by the Italian press and had many life sentences in absentia during his time on the run. The January police raid at the Maddalena clinic, which resulted in his arrest, involved more than 100 agents. He had been periodically receiving treatment for a tumour under the false name of Andrea Bonafede at the clinic in Palermo, Sicily. L’Aquila mayor Pierluigi Biondi confirmed Denaro’s death in hospital "following a worsening of his illness." His death "puts the end to a story of violence and blood", Biondi said, thanking prison and hospital staff for their "professionalism and humanity." He continued: "[ity was] the epilogue of an existence lived without remorse or repentance, a painful chapter of the recent history of our nation."
Matteo Messina Denaro in Palermo, being arrested earlier this year (ITALIAN CARABINIERI PRESS OFFICE)Since Friday night, Denaro had been reported to have been in an "irreversible coma." Over the past few days his daughter, whom he met for the first time while in prison in April, was by his bedside, the news agency ANSA reported. The brutal killer once infamously claimed that he alone could fill a whole cemetery with the number of people he had slain. Despite being on the run, he managed to sustain a luxurious lifestyle, thanks to several bankrollers who, according to prosecutors, included politicians and businessmen. He was known for wearing expensive suits, a Rolex and Ray-Ban sunglasses.
Denaro reportedly enjoyed orgies with Palermo women while on the run and 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. He was also responsible for 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.
Mafia boss' ex-girlfriend quizzed by police 'for helping him on the run'
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."
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