The former head of the Sicilian mafia Cosa Nostra, Matteo Messina Denaro, arrested in January after 30 years on the run, died today at the age of 61 in the L’Aquila hospital (center) due to the colon cancer he suffered from. , according to the media.
The most wanted criminal in Italy until his arrest had entered an irreversible coma in the last few hours and his treatment and food had been withdrawn.
The 61-year-old gangster had been taken to the maximum security prison in L’Aquila (center), subjected to the strict regime of penitentiary isolation, but after his health worsened he was transferred to the prisoner unit of the hospital in that city, in the middle of strong security measures.
The criminal had left a “biological will” or last will document in which he asked that his life not be prolonged through treatments or machines.
On August 8, he underwent surgery for an intestinal obstruction but, although the surgery was successful, his health conditions entered a phase of “continual worsening” due to the cancer.
During his agony in the hospital he has been accompanied by his sister Giovanna, his niece and lawyer Lorenza Guttadauro, and by his only known legitimate daughter, Lorenza, 27 years old and whom he saw for the first time last April when she went to visit him in prison. .
Messina Denaro, known by nicknames such as “Diabolik” or “U Siccu”, was the most wanted mafia member in Italy since 1993 for his multiple crimes and for participating in the bloody season of attacks in the early 1990s, in which they were murdered among others the anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.
He later became the most wanted fugitive in Italy and one of the most dangerous internationally and his arrest, after a complicated investigation, was celebrated as historic in the country.
However, after his arrest, it was learned that he had hidden in the town of Campobello di Mazzara (Sicily, south), near his hometown, Castelvetrano, and that he also lived an almost normal life, as the restaurant receipts attest. and all kinds of belongings found in his lair.
Likewise, the network of alleged collaborators who had covered up for him in Sicily was also discovered: from his sister Rosalía, to his driver Giovanni Luppino, to his personal doctor, Alfonso Tumbarello, or the Bonafede family, who had lent him their last name.
