He suffered from colon cancer and had to undergo chemotherapy when Matteo Messina Denaro, the most wanted criminal in Italy,
was arrested this Monday morning .
The mafia boss was in line with other patients to undergo chemotherapy at the Palermo clinic that treated his colon cancer, when he spotted the policemen approaching him and
tried to flee by walking quickly
to the internal bar, near the entrance, where they caught him
"I'm Matteo Messina Denaro," he admitted without resisting.
In the clinic where he had been treated for more than a year, he was known by the false name of
Andrea Bonafede
.
The veteran mafioso
Giovanni Lupini
who was always with him when he visited the clinic accompanied him and was also captured.
More than a hundred police officers from the special services, the ROS,
surrounded the medical center
and hundreds more were mobilized, directed from a barracks.
Messina Denaro was taken to a police station and
then to an airport
, from where he left in a special plane to "a
maximum security
prison structure, " according to reports.
Thirty years on the run
Thus concluded thirty years of fugitive from justice accumulated by the then young character of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian mafia, as the
son of Don Chicho
, the boss of the organization in Trapani that Matteo inherited.
Matteo Messina Denaro, at the time of his arrest.
Photo: Reuters
From a very young age he had joined the mafia life.
He was also a favorite of Salvatore "Totó" Riina, the boss of the bosses of Cosa Nostra, whose arrest this Sunday marked the 30th anniversary of his arrest in Palermo by the police.
Matteo Messina Denaro only had to wait for Bernardo Lorenzano's interim as head of Cosa Nostra and later inherited his position when
he was also captured
.
The period of the ruthless government of "Totó" Riina was characterized as that of
the terrorist mafia
and left a long list of
bloody attacks and deaths
that made it the toughest in mafia history.
Messina Denaro
is the last capo of the capos of this period
.
The chief prosecutor of Palermo, Maurizio De Luzia, who has been leading the investigations for years and this Monday was with the police commander in the final operation to capture him, clarified: "We must not think that the Mafia is finished after this arrest." .
Mafia car bomb against investigator Paolo Borsellino and his guards in Sicily, in 1992. Photo: AP
“The mafia exists and has changed.
It does not commit more havoc, we do not see as many deaths as in the past.
It is a mafia that has changed its face, but it is still
just as dangerous
”.
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio acknowledged that "with the arrest of Messina Denaro
, one of the most dramatic stations
in the history of the Republic comes to an end."
And he added: "With the capture of the last super-fugitive, the daily commitment to the fight against any mafia is renewed."
a super-criminal
Matteo Messina Denaro, whose face was known through digital reconstructions.
Photo: AP
The reaction of the magistrates to the capture frames the extraordinary importance of the arrest of a super-criminal whose face was known through digital reconstructions.
Only now, with Messina Denaro being flown to a maximum security prison far from Sicily, is the transition from the old all-powerful, terrorist mafia to the new mafia complete.
Above all, it helps to dig deeper into the truth of the secrets not yet revealed.
We must not think that the Mafia is finished after this arrest."
Chief Prosecutor of Palermo, Maurizio De Luzia
Only Messina Denaro was missing.
Many mafia bosses have been in prison for thirty years with the application of special laws that
do not allow them to go free
.
Also him, with the cascade of arrest warrants that he has accumulated dodging in the role of Mafia Ghost, impossible to arrest, that made him an icon.
His family kingdom was the triangle between
Castelvetrano, Marsala and Trapani
, which was long in the hands of Francesco, his father.
There his fame grew and his status as a favorite of the leaders of Cosa Nostra, with Riina at the head.
Those who challenged the power of Trapaneses and Corleoneses
had a tragic end
, like the four of the Alcamo family,
strangled and dissolved in acid
.
"His father,
good cheer
, was a
brave friend of mine
," Riina commented in the maximum security prison where another mafioso was imprisoned, unaware that everything he spoke
was rigorously recorded.
Salvatore Toto Riina.
Photo: archive
Matteo had been one of the protagonists of the terrorist strategy with which Riina had strengthened her power and even made
contact with the political world.
This Monday, the head of government Giorgia Meloni, who traveled to Palermo to participate in the celebrations for the arrest of Messina Denaro, said in Rome:
"This is a great victory for the State against the mafia."
One of his tributes in Palermo was in front of the building where
the greatest hero of the fight against Cosa Nostra
lived , judge Giovanni Falcone.
At a kind of altar where daily homage is paid to her memory, Prime Minister Meloni remembered the other four victims of the mafia terrorist attack that cost them their lives in May 1992.
the head of government Giorgia Meloni who traveled to Palermo to participate in the celebrations for the arrest of Messina.
Photo: EFE
The four were
his wife, also a magistrate, and three policemen from the escort
, blown up with explosives placed under the highway that leads from the airport to Palermo.
Also the other hero of the fight against the mafia, the prosecutor Paolo Borsellino, died after Falcone in another terrorist attack that also killed five police officers who were guarding him, on July 19, 1993.
Palermo airport today bears the name Falcone Borsellino in homage to the two most revered victims of that terrible time.
The Messina Denaro bombings
The capture of Totó Riina was a hard blow for the mafia, but Cosa Nostra, with participation in the Messina Denaro operations,
continued to carry out attacks in Florence, Rome and Milan
in which ten people died.
They were attacks directed against the Italian political power in order to
force the State to negotiate
under the conditions imposed by Cosa Nostra.
The last boss of the bosses, who also represented that era, is accused with a request to life imprisonment for
dozens of homicides
.
Among them, the adolescent Giuseppe Di Matteo, strangled and dissolved in acid.
It was
a response to the father
who had "repented" and told the magistrates many secrets of the terrorist mafia of those years.
Matteo's has been a capture of the
largest mafia leader
of the era started by "Totó" Riina.
Hundreds of carabineros and police officers
have been employed to capture him.
And in the effort to detect it, the State has used
extraordinary resources
in these thirty years as a fugitive.
Hundreds of carabinieri and police officers have been employed to capture Matteo Messina.
Photo: Reuters
“The state does not surrender to the mafia,
” Prime Minister Meloni said.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella, a Sicilian from Palermo whose older brother was president of the region and was assassinated by Cosa Nostra,
congratulated all involved in the capture.
A capture with
mysteries
There are many mysteries that accompany his capture.
He will have to
rebuild his prolonged flight of thirty years
with the support of a mafia structure that helped him avoid jail.
From himself he remains the image of
a playboy
who used Rayban glasses and elegant shirts.
He always represented much less years than he had and
he was very busy conquering women
.
He was known to love Porsches and gold Rolex watches.
He was manic about video games and comics, especially
Diabolix
.
Some gave him that nickname.
But so much information was known about Matteo Messina Denaro and
clear images of his face were practically never seen
.
Testimonies always arrived, half-tone revelations about the super-fugitive.
It was learned that in Barcelona they had operated on the retina in an ophthalmological clinic.
His past is still surrounded by mysteries.
Rome, correspondent
ap
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