Italian security forces have arrested mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro on the island of Sicily, considered one of the last great godfathers of Cosa Nostra and a fugitive from justice for three decades.
Authorities have located him at a clinic Palermo, where he had gone to undergo treatment, according to the commander of the Caribinieri, Pasquale Angelosanto. Messina had gone under a false name to receive a chemotherapy session, according to Rai.
Messina, which offered no resistance to the agents, has been transferred to a secure location prior to his arrival at a maximum security prison, in line with the protocols for this type of arrest. Not surprisingly, he was considered the number one fugitive from Italy.
Messina is already sentenced to life imprisonment for his connection to the murders in 1992 of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, in two historical tragedies in the fight of the Italian authorities against organized crime during the 1990s.
Although the sentence against Messina underlines that the mafioso had no role in the execution of the attacks that ended the lives of the judges –the massacres of Capaci and Via D’Amelio–, it does conclude that the mafioso offered help to monitor to the magistrates at the moment in which the great person in charge of the attacks, Salvatore Riina, decided to launch the operations.
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The fiscal Paolo Guidoone of those responsible for the cause, has celebrated that this operation “is the result of years of investigations” and derives from “difficult and complex” coordination work between different institutions.
For him tax de Palermo, Maurizio De Luciaresponsible together with Guido for the case, the operation has “historical importance” and means settling a debt with the “martyrs” who have lost their lives in Italy, as he explained to public radio and television.
Government satisfaction
For the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, it is about “a great victory for the State”, which “does not surrender to the mafia”. Meloni, who plans to travel to Sicily, has pointed out that Messina’s arrest occurred 30 years after that of another symbolic capo, Salvatore Totò Riina.
Meloni thanked all the institutions involved in the arrest “of the most significant exponent of mafia crime” on Twitter for their work. “The prevention and fight against mafia crimes (…) will continue to be the absolute priority of this government,” she emphasized.
The Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, has also celebrated what he considers “a good day” for the country, although the satisfaction also extends to the entire political spectrum. “The mafia always loses in the end,” said the leader of the Democratic Party, Enrico Letta.