And why did his arrest take so lengthy?
Italian police on Monday arrested Matteo Messina Denaro, the nation’s most needed Mafia boss, who had spent 30 years on the run.
Who's Matteo Messina Denaro?
Messina Denaro is accused of being a ruthless murderer whose violence fuelled the bloody popularity of the Cosa Nostra Mafia.
“With the folks I've killed myself, I may fill a cemetery,” he's mentioned to have boasted.
The phrase is inconceivable to verify however speaks to the legend that surrounds him.
Referred to as “Diabolik” after an Italian comedian character, he was the undisputed chief of the Cosa Nostra within the western Sicilian province of Trapani.
However his energy prolonged farther, together with to Sicily’s capital, Palermo, the place he was arrested.
Messina Denaro is a fan of Rolex watches, designer garments, comedian books and video video games and has a popularity as a playboy. He was as soon as featured on an Italian journal cowl in darkish glasses, wanting like a rock star, however his listing of victims is lengthy and the crimes he's accused of are horrific.
What's he accused of?
Born on April 26, 1962, in Castelvetrano in southwest Sicily, Messina Denaro grew up within the coronary heart of organised crime.
His father, Don Ciccio, was the top of the native clan, and his godfather, who attended his baptism, was additionally a member of the mob. His first run-ins with the regulation started in 1989 when he took half in a bloody wrestle between two clans.
He was accused that yr of murdering Nicola Consales, a lodge proprietor who complained to an worker of all the time having “these little mafiosos beneath our ft”. Sadly, the worker was Messina Denaro’s mistress.
In 1992, he was a part of a mob group despatched to Rome to attempt to kill anti-Mafia decide Giovanni Falcone.
The group was finally recalled by Toto Riina, the Corleone boss referred to as “the Beast”, who selected one other strategy. Falcone was murdered in a automobile bombing close to Palermo on Could 23, 1992.
Messina Denaro himself was ruthless all through his profession.
In July 1992, after allegedly participating within the homicide of Vincenzo Milazzo, the top of the rival Alcamo clan, he's accused of strangling his associate, who was three months’ pregnant.
The 2 our bodies had been buried within the countryside.
As head of the Castelvetrano clan, he was allied with the Corleonesi clan, which was immortalised within the The Godfather movies.
After Riina was arrested in January 1993, investigators say Messina Denaro continued his technique of all-out brutality, offering logistical help for bombings in Florence, Milan and Rome that yr that killed 10 folks and wounded about 100.
A court docket discovered that in November 1993, he was one of many organisers of the kidnapping of Giuseppe Di Matteo, then 12, whose father had given testimony concerning the homicide of Falcone.
In some of the infamous Cosa Nostra incidents, the boy was held for 779 days earlier than being strangled and his physique dissolved in acid.
How did he evade seize for therefore lengthy?
Messina Denaro disappeared from public view in the course of 1993, starting what can be 30 years on the run from accusations together with Mafia affiliation, homicide, theft and possession of explosives.
In 1994 and 1996, statements from mobsters who later acted as state witnesses shed some gentle on his function throughout the Cosa Nostra.
In 2000 after what is named the Maxi Trial towards the Sicilian Mafia in Trapani, which convicted a whole lot of defendants, he was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment.
As a needed man, Messina Denaro managed his affairs by speaking beneath the pseudonym “Alessio” by way of the pizzini system, by which messages had been left on tiny bits of paper.
His whereabouts and actions throughout that point had been the topic of intense rumours, together with that he had had cosmetic surgery to alter his look.
He had many sources of income, from drug trafficking to playing, each in Italy and overseas.
In 2015, an Italian prosecutor on his path, Teresa Principato, mentioned he had doubtless eluded seize for therefore lengthy as a result of he was protected “at a really excessive stage”. She didn't say whether or not this meant Cosa Nostra, politicians or establishments.
“We've affirmation of his presence in Brasil, Spain, Britain, Austria,” she informed Il Fatto Quotidiano day by day on the time. “He travels for terribly high-level enterprise, and his return to Sicily is irregular and more and more rare.”
In 2020, a number of of Messina Denaro’s collaborators had been arrested, tightening the web across the boss.
And in October that yr, he was once more sentenced in absentia for his function in Falcone’s homicide.
How was he captured?
Carabinieri Basic Pasquale Angelosanto, who heads the police drive’s particular operations squad, mentioned Messina Denaro’s well being helped investigators zero in on him. The fugitive was taken into custody whereas at a medical centre.
“All of it led to as we speak’s date (when) he would have come for some exams and remedy” on the clinic, Angelosanto mentioned on Monday.
Authorities didn't say what he was being handled for, however he was captured at La Maddalena clinic in Palermo, an upscale medical facility with a popularity for treating most cancers sufferers, and Italian media mentioned he has been present process remedy for a yr.
Throughout a night information convention, authorities mentioned Messina Denaro’s remedy may proceed at a hospital jail ward.
Investigators mentioned he was unarmed and dressed like a typical affected person on the clinic though carrying a watch price not less than 30,000 euros (about $33,000).
“He didn’t resist in any respect,” Carabinieri Colonel Lucio Arcidiacono informed reporters.
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