Italian Mafia Leader Matteo Messina Denaro Dies After Decades on the Run
Death of a Ruthless Mafia Leader and His Notorious Criminal Legacy
Italian Mafia leader Matteo Messina Denaro, who had been found guilty of numerous homicides and was apprehended in January following three decades on the lam, has passed away from cancer, authorities announced on Monday.
At the age of 61, Messina Denaro had been battling colon cancer at the time of his capture. As his health deteriorated over the past few weeks, he was relocated from the high-security prison in central Italy where he had initially been detained to a hospital.
He slipped into a coma on Friday and remained unconscious until the end.
Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini expressed on Instagram, “While I can’t deny prayers to anyone, I can’t genuinely say I am sorry.”
Messina Denaro had been convicted of a range of offenses, including his involvement in orchestrating the 1992 assassinations of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. These crimes sent shockwaves through Italy and triggered a rigorous crackdown on the Sicilian mafia.
He was additionally attributed to the bombings in Rome, Florence, and Milan in 1993, resulting in the deaths of ten individuals. Furthermore, he played a role in orchestrating the abduction of 12-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo, an attempt to dissuade the boy’s father from providing testimony against the mafia. Tragically, the young boy was held captive for two years before meeting a tragic end.
Known in the Italian press as “the last Godfather,” Messina Denaro is not believed to have cooperated with law enforcement by providing any information following his apprehension outside a private clinic in the Sicilian capital of Palermo on January 16th.
According to confidential medical documents leaked to the Italian media, he underwent surgeries for colon cancer in both 2020 and 2022, using a false identity for these procedures. A physician at the Palermo clinic informed La Repubblica newspaper that Messina Denaro’s health had significantly deteriorated in the months leading up to his apprehension.
Uncompromising from a Young Age
Born in 1962 in the southwestern Sicilian town of Castelvetrano, Messina Denaro was the offspring of a mafioso. He chose to walk the same criminal path as his father, and by the age of 15, he was already armed. Law enforcement reports indicate that he committed his first homicide when he was 18 years old.
The Castelvetrano clan had forged an alliance with the Corleonesi faction, under the leadership of Salvatore “the Beast” Riina, who would eventually ascend to the position of the undisputed “boss of bosses” within the Sicilian mafia, commonly known as Cosa Nostra (Our Thing). Riina achieved this dominance through his relentless pursuit of power.
Dubbed “U Siccu” (The Skinny One), Messina Denaro emerged as Riina’s protege and demonstrated that he possessed the same unrelenting ruthlessness as his mentor. He accumulated an astonishing 20 life imprisonment sentences in trials held in absentia, all related to his involvement in a multitude of mafia-related murders.
In a chilling testament to his brutality, Messina Denaro once claimed to have taken the lives of enough individuals to populate an entire cemetery.
“Respect for death is a fundamental principle, as opposed to the mafiosi, who only seem to respect life until they take it away. Nevertheless, we must not forget who Messina Denaro truly was – a murderer, a mass murderer who inflicted profound harm upon our region,” remarked Enzo Alfano, the mayor of Castelvetrano, in an interview with the Adnkronos news agency.
In 1993, Messina Denaro went into hiding, prompted by a growing number of informants revealing intricate details of his involvement in organized crime. Nevertheless, investigators believe he seldom ventured far from the shores of Sicily.
According to police reports, much of his 2022 was spent concealing himself in Campobello di Mazara, a town with approximately 11,000 residents, situated just a short drive from his mother’s residence in western Sicily.
He maintained contact with fellow mafiosi through the use of “pizzini,” small pieces of paper, sometimes encrypted, distributed by messengers. Some of these messages were intercepted by law enforcement.
Though he never entered into matrimony, Messina Denaro was known to have been involved with several romantic partners. He had written about having a daughter but had never met her. Italian media reported that they finally met after his capture, and she had agreed to adopt his surname.
Despite his infamy, prosecutors consistently harbored doubts regarding Messina Denaro’s ascendancy to the position of Mafia “boss of bosses.” They believed it was more probable that he held the role of the head of Cosa Nostra in western Sicily.
A government official announced that his remains are expected to be returned to Sicily in the forthcoming days for a strictly private funeral.
By: M Z Hossain, Editor Sky Buzz Feed
