“Diabolik” is no more: the powerful and bloodthirsty godfather of the Sicilian mafia, Matteo Messina Denaro, captured in January after 30 years on the run, died Monday in a hospital in central Italy where he was being treated for cancer , taking the secrets of his violent reign to the grave.
Aged 61, Matteo Messina Denaro, who was one of the leaders of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia, suffered from colon cancer for which he was treated while on the run. It was while visiting a clinic in Palermo that the last living Sicilian “capo”, wanted since 1993, was arrested in January of this year.
The ruthless killer was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the 1992 assassinations of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
After his arrest, he was transferred to a high security prison. Then, in August, he was transferred to the detainee ward of L’Aquila hospital, where his condition deteriorated.
His death “ends a story of violence and blood,” said the city’s mayor, Pierluigi Biondi.
This weekend, media announced that he had fallen into an “irreversible coma”. Doctors stopped feeding him and he asked not to be resuscitated, according to the press.
Nicknamed Diabolik, from the name of a criminal protagonist of a famous Italian comic book of which he himself was a reader, this man sentenced to life six times was the undisputed leader of Cosa Nostra in the province of Trapani, in the west of Sicily, even if its power extended as far as Palermo, the capital of the island.
“With the people I killed myself, I could fill a cemetery,” this great firearms enthusiast is said to have boasted to a friend.
Faced with the police, the mafia boss always remained silent. And even denied being a member of Cosa Nostra.
“We should not deprive anyone of our prayers. But I cannot say that I am sad,” Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini reacted on Monday on the X network.
After his disappearance in 1993, some thought he had gone abroad. He actually lived in a comfortable apartment near his hometown of Castelvetrano in western Sicily.
According to the residents of Campobello di Mazara, he went out in broad daylight to have a coffee at the local bar, order a pizza, do his shopping… He had false papers and pretended to be a doctor.
“It will take decades to eradicate the mentality, the culture of impunity” which were those of Messina Denaro, warned the mayor of Castelvetrano, Enzo Alfano.
In 2015, prosecutor Teresa Principato estimated that if he had been able to evade the police for so long while traveling easily it was only because he was protected “at a very high level”, without however specifying the nature of this protection. “We have had confirmation of its presence in Brazil, Spain, Great Britain, Austria,” she was surprised.
After his autopsy, Messina Denaro should be buried in the family vault, alongside his father, Don Ciccio.
The latter had been the head of the local mafia. He is said to have died of a heart attack while on the run, his body having been abandoned in the countryside, dressed for the funeral.
For years, investigators combed the Sicilian countryside for Messina Denaro, searching for hiding places and wiretapping her family members and friends.
It was by intercepting one of their conversations about the medical problems of a person suffering from cancer and eye problems that the investigators understood that it was the wanted mafia boss.
They used an Italian health system database to search for male patients with matching ages and medical histories and eventually stopped it.
In July, an Italian court sentenced him on appeal to life imprisonment for his role in the 1992 assassination of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
“Unfortunately his capture did not make it possible to advance truth and justice,” lamented Judge Borsellino’s brother, Salvatore, to the LaPresse agency.
09/25/2023 18:35:29 – Rome (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
