The head of the Italian mafia Cosa Nostra, Matteo Messina Denaro, died this morning at the age of 61 due to colon cancer, according to the Italian press, eight months after being arrested after 30 years on the run.
According to information from Corriere Della Sera, Messina Denaro was in the ward of the San Salvatore hospital in L’Aquila.
His health condition worsened a month ago, after two operations and, in addition to being sedated several days ago, family visits had been suspended, Italian state television Rai reported.
Messina Denaro became head of Cosa Nostra following the arrests of Salvatore “Totó” Riina in 1993 and Bernardo Provenzano in 2006.
The mafia leader was arrested by the Italian authorities on January 16, after 30 years on the run, accused of being the instigator of several murders and massacres that marked Italy for decades.
Messina Denaro was arrested when he went to a private health center in Palermo to receive medical treatment. He is now in a maximum security prison in L’Aquila, in the center of Abruzzo.
After the arrest, several houses where the mafia boss hid in recent years were discovered, in Campobello di Mazara, a few kilometers from Castelvetrano, his hometown and where his family lives.
Wanted since the 90s, Matteo Messina Denaro managed to remain hidden thanks to a network of contacts and aid that guaranteed his escape during all these years.
Messina Denaro was facing multiple life sentences for his role in dozens of murders, including those of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992 and that of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 12-year-old son of a mobster who became a state . witness and who was strangled and dissolved in acid in 1996.
Source: TSF
