rome
CNN
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Arrest of Cosa Nostra mob boss Matteo Messina Denaro Private health clinic in Palermo Monday shocked many around the world because of the extraordinary length of time he was on the run – but little surprise to some who had a closer look at the mafia.
Whispers of his poor health had circulated in Sicily for months, with hints of a “deal” to bring him back to the surface to receive better cancer care. When officers asked her her name, she chose not to use her alias Andrea Bonafede, Palermo prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia told reporters.
“I’m Matteo Messina Denaro,” he said instead—perhaps the first time he’d uttered those words in public in the 30 years he’d been on the run.
Messina Denaro, who is being held at a maximum-security prison in central Italy’s La’Aquila, did not appear by video link on Thursday for a hearing in the 1992 murders of anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino – lawyers to appear on his behalf.
Messina Denaro, nicknamed “Diabolik”, went into hiding in 1993, just a year after Falcone and Borsellino died in a bombing. He was jailed in absentia for life in May 2002 for his involvement in their deaths but, following his arrest, the case will now be heard in the High Court.
That year he was also convicted of murdering 12-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo, the turncoat’s son, and Antonella Bonanno, the pregnant partner of a rival boss. Both these cases will be taken up in the High Court now that he has been arrested.
After his arrest, police found at least two hideouts in the Sicilian town of Campobello di Mazzara where he is believed to have lived in recent months. CNN affiliate SkyTG24 reported that a house where he was hiding was in the city center and that police found luxury clothes and expensive perfume there. The other was a fortified bunker behind a secret door, Reuters reported, citing local officials.
Police are yet to release details. They confirmed, however, that the man most wanted in Italy regularly did his own grocery shopping and was described by neighbors as a “friendly” person.
On Thursday, Giovanni Lupino, an olive oil producer who took him to the Palermo clinic where he was arrested, told a court that he had “no idea” the man who had become his friend was really a fugitive mob boss. Messina Denaro remains in prison awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to the Mafia. The doctors who treated him are also under investigation by the police.
The murders of Falcone and Borsellino were ordered by then-boss of bosses, Salvatore “Toto” Riina, who was arrested in 1993 and had brought Messina Denaro into the Cosa Nostra Mafia organization years before. Rina was caught on wiretaps expressing her admiration for the then-young criminal, especially how he had no problem killing innocent bystanders without focusing on revenge.
Rina died in prison in a hospital in Parma in 2017 due to an unspecified health problem, definitively ending her reign. He was in a medically induced coma at the time. Mario Francis, a crime journalist who first exposed Rina in his writing for the newspaper Giornal di Sicilia, was murdered in 1979. In 2001, Cosa Nostra was convicted of his murder, with both Rina and his successor, Bernardo Provenzano, sentenced to life in prison. Jail for their roles.
While in hiding, Messina worked closely under Denaro Provenzano, who assumed Rina’s role as outside top boss until his own incarceration in a hideout near Corleone in 2006. Provenzano died of bladder cancer in the prison wing of a Milan hospital in 2016, leading to Messina being considered Denaro’s top boss.
Messina Denaro – who was born in 1962 – was the last of an older generation of mafia bosses, said Felia Alum, professor of comparative organized crime and corruption at the University of Bath in the UK.
“He represents the ultimate link between the warlike and outspoken Cosa Nostra of the early 1990s and the silent, business-like mafia of the 21st century,” he said. He also stressed that Messina Denaro’s arrest was not the end of the Mafia. “I don’t see a sense of closure, if we don’t know who protected him, if he’s not cooperating,” he said.
According to Roberto Saviano, author of “Gomorrah,” the best-selling book about the Neapolitan Camorra crime group, rumors of a deal or “pact” between the state and Cosa Nostra to smuggle the Messina denarros are worth considering. .
“It is always said that the mafia is against the state, it is wrong. The mafia is allied with one part of the state, while the other part is fighting it,” he said in his speech. YouTube channel. “In this play of forces, Matteo Messina Denaro was arrested.”
Saviano added in a text message exchange with CNN that Messina had another reason to find Denaro 30 years ago. “They only started looking for him after 20 years,” he said.
John Dickey, a professor of Italian studies at Britain’s University College London and author of “Cosa Nostra,” took a different view, telling CNN that there was more to suggest that no deal had been made, but instead that Messina Denaro no longer held power. Once it did, it made him a less valuable person to protect.
Over the past decade, assets worth billions of euros have been confiscated from his closest allies and family members have been seized, weakening his power and his ability to protect him, he said.
“His network has been pruned over the years and the mafia has been weakened by arrests,” Dickey said. “Mafia was different 30 years ago, it was much stronger.”
Messina arrested most of Denaro’s family and kept the rest under surveillance, he said, possibly capturing him. “His importance is symbolic,” Dickey told CNN. “When he was in hiding, he was a living advertisement for Cosa Nostra’s power, but now he doesn’t have that power.”
Whether it was the result of a deal or indeed the result of a three-decade investigation, the arrests were applauded by those most hurt by the Mafia’s deadly hand.
Maria Falcone Messina, sister of the slain prosecutor, praised Denaro’s arrest. “Oh, how I would like to see the people of Palermo clapping and raising their hands after the arrest of Giovanni and Paolo,” he told Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. “This is a big step towards a full democracy.”
Giancarlo Caselli, a former anti-Mafia prosecutor in Palermo and a colleague of the slain prosecutors, said in an interview on Radio Popular that the main reason Messina Denaro escaped from captivity for so long was the complicity of those who protected him.
“Mafiosi do not work in a vacuum. They are inside, involved in systems of relationships, involved in complexities, without which they could not have carried out their criminal activities, without which they could not have been on the run,” he said.
“They are in relationships that form professionals, entrepreneurs, public administrators, politicians, individuals who side with their organizations and the so-called mafia bourgeoisie or gray zone.” He said it was that gray area, the “backbone of mafia power”, without which the mafia would not survive long.
The Sicilian Cosa Nostra Mafia is the only criminal organization in Italy that rules through a pyramid structure, meaning that when a top boss dies or is imprisoned, a new top boss takes over – although Rina and Provenzano retain some influence from behind bars.
The Neapolitan Camorra, whose factions co-founded the Cosa Nostra with the ‘Ndrangheta of Calabria in the 1800s, rule on a horizontal hierarchy with groups tied to families or regions, meaning that if a top boss is captured or killed, the larger Organization is not weak
The Sicilian Cosa Nostra Mafiosi, who immigrated to the United States in the late 1800s, were at various points in history in the early 1900s, mid-1960s, and early 1970s when the American gangs were most powerful, primarily in New York and New York. Created the American Mafia in Orleans. . Although today all of Italy’s major crime groups have expanded internationally, Cosa Nostra remains the main exporter of the so-called “malavita” underworld.
Messina Denaro will now face multiple criminal trials. Although he was tried in absentia on several charges, Italian criminal cases go through three levels, ending with the High Court signing. Criminals can only be tried in absentia in the first degree, meaning his cases will now go through appeals and higher court trials.
He will be represented by his niece Lorenza Guttadauro, daughter of his sister Rosalia, who passed the Italian equivalent of the bar exam in 2011. The next hearing in the anti-Mafia prosecutor’s case is scheduled for March 9
And who is the new boss of bosses? Police have not named the suspect’s successor.
But according to Saviano, Denaro of Messina would reign until he died, like Rina and Provenzano before him.
“Unless he decides to repent, Matteo Messina Denaro, even locked up, will continue to be king of Cosa Nostra because no one is ready to sit on the throne he left only half empty,” he said.
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