Messina Denaro in irreversible coma

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 22 - One-time top Mafia fugitive MatteoMessina Denaro, caught after 30 years on the run in a Palermocancer clinic in mid-January, is now in an irreversible coma,sources at L'Aquila hospital said Friday.
   Denaro, 61, hospitalised in the prison ward of L'Aquilahospital, won't come out of the coma and this evening thedoctors will suspend his nutrition, they said.
   Messina Denaro had been in hospital for over a month.
   The intestinal surgery he underwent on August 8 was successfulbut the mobster's advanced colon cancer caused an irreversibledeterioration in his state of health, the sources said.
   The Cosa Nostra superboss has been convicted for his involvementin dozens of murders, including the 1992 bombings that killedanti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
   In addition to the Falcone and Borsellino assassinations, he hasbeen condemned for the killing of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the12-year-old son of a mobster-turned-State witness who wasstrangled and dissolved in acid in 1996, and bombings at art andreligious sites in Milan, Florence and Rome that killed 10people and hurt 40 more in 1993.
   Long idolised by younger mafiosi for his ruthlessness andplayboy-like charisma,, Messina Denaro sealed a reputation forbrutality by murdering a rival Trapani boss and strangling histhree-months-pregnant girlfriend.
   The boss, who reportedly enjoyed orgies with Palermo women whileon the run, once said he could have filled a cemetery with thosehe had killed.
   He was reportedly helped dodge police by a "middle class Mafia",not only around his fief at Trapani but also around Sicily,Italian police have said. (ANSA).