Cops seal off 'Devil's tomb' where evil mafia boss who killed 50 laid to rest
The final resting place of a Mafia boss who once boasted he “filled a cemetery” with victims after killing 50 has been revealed.
Godfather Matteo Messina Denaro was the convicted mastermind of some of the Sicilian gangsters’ most heinous slayings and died on Monday in L'Aquila hospital of colon cancer. Doctors said the mobster monster had been in a coma since Friday. During his career of violence he is said to have carried out hits on at least 50 people, including a young boy when his own father informed on him. The boy was kidnapped and strangled and his body was dissolved in a vat of acid.
The family chapel of mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro at the cemetery in Sicily (ANSA/AFP via Getty Images)The don's burial was held at a cemetery at Castelvetrano, south of Palermo, in his family’s vault today. Only 13 people were allowed to stay for the event, which was sealed off by police. Said by investigators to be one of the mafia's most powerful bosses, Denaro had mainly been hiding out in western Sicily, his stronghold, during his 30 years on the run, thanks to the help of locals. His need for colon cancer treatment led to his capture on January 16 2023. Investigators were on his trail for years and discovered evidence he was receiving chemotherapy under an alias as an out-patient at a Palermo clinic.
Police stand guard as the mafia family arrives (ANSA/AFP via Getty Images)While a fugitive, he was tried in absentia and convicted of dozens of murders, including helping to plan a pair of 1992 bombings which killed Italy's leading anti-mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Prosecutors had hoped in vain he would collaborate with them and reveal Cosa Nostra secrets. According to Italian media reports, Messina Denaro made it clear immediately after his capture he would not talk. When he died, "he took with him his secrets" about Cosa Nostra, state radio said.
Lorenza Alagna, daughter of late mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, leaves the cemetery (IGOR PETYX/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)After his arrest, Messina Denaro began serving multiple life sentences in a top-security prison in L'Aquila, a city in Italy's central Apennine mountain area, where he continued to receive chemotherapy. In his last weeks, after having two surgeries and with his condition worsening, he was transferred to the prison ward of the hospital where he died. His silence followed the examples of Riina and of the Sicilian Mafia's other top boss, Bernardo Provenzano, who was caught in a farmhouse in Corleone, Sicily, in 2006, after 37 years in hiding - the longest time on the run for a mafia boss. Once in police hands, the state's hunt focused on Messina Denaro, who managed to elude arrest despite numerous reported sightings.
Mafia boss' ex-girlfriend quizzed by police 'for helping him on the run'
Italian police awaiting the funeral cortege to arrive (Getty Images)Dozens of lower-level mafia bosses and foot soldiers did turn state's evidence following a crackdown on the Sicilian syndicate sparked by the assassinations of Falcone and Borsellino - in bombings which also killed Falcone's wife and several police bodyguards. Denaro was also among several Cosa Nostra top bosses convicted of ordering a series of bombings in 1993 which targeted two churches in Rome, the Uffizi Galleries in Florence and an art gallery in Milan. A total of 10 people were killed in the Florence and Milan bombings.
The attacks in those three tourist cities, according to turncoats, were aimed at pressuring the Italian government into easing rigid prison conditions for convicted mobsters. When Messina Denaro was arrested, Palermo's chief prosecutor, Maurizio De Lucia, said: "We have captured the last of the massacre masterminds."
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