Jailed Italian Mafia Boss Matteo Messina Is Dead: Reports

Italian Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, who was captured in January after 30 years on the run, has died, according to media reports.

The ANSA news agency said on Monday that Messina Denaro, 61, died in the L’Aquila Hospital in central Italy after slipping into an “irreversible coma” over the weekend.

The former head of the Cosa Nostra Sicilian mob was seeking treatment for colon cancer at the time of his arrest. He was initially held in a maximum-security prison but transferred to the L’Aquila Hospital in recent weeks when his condition worsened.

Messina Denaro had requested no aggressive medical treatment, ANSA reported, adding that medics had stopped feeding him after he was declared to be in a coma.

The son of a mafioso, Messina Denaro was born in the southwestern Sicilian town of Castelvetrano in 1962. He followed his father into the mob and at 15, was already carrying a gun.

Police say he carried out his first killing when he was 18.

The Castelvetrano clan was allied to the Corleonesi, led by Salvatore “the Beast” Riina, who became the undisputed “boss of bosses” of Cosa Nostra thanks to his ruthless pursuit of power.

Nicknamed “U Siccu” or the Skinny One, Messina Denaro became Riina’s protege and showed he could be just as pitiless as his master, picking up 20 life prison terms in trials held in absentia for his role in an array of mob murders.

These include the 1992 killings of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino – crimes that shocked Italy and sparked a crackdown on the Sicilian mob, as well as bombings in Rome, Florence and Milan in 1993 that killed 10 people.

Messina Denaro was also held responsible for the kidnapping of Giuseppe Di Matteo, 12, to try to dissuade the boy’s father from giving evidence against the mafia.

JAZEERA