War Against State<\/strong><\/h2>\nMessina Denaro was sentenced in absentia to life in prison in 2002 for the 1992 killings of anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. At the time, the Cosa Nostra was waging an open war with the Italian state.<\/p>\n
Messina Denaro was also convicted of masterminding terrorist bomb attacks in Florence, Rome, and Milan in 1993. The bombings killed 10 and sparked widespread public outrage.<\/strong><\/p>\nHe symbolized the state\u2019s impotence against organized crime during his two decades on the run. Mafia experts described his arrest at a medical facility in Palermo, the Sicilian capital, as the end of a myth that the crime syndicate would struggle to come to terms with.<\/p>\n
‘Filled a Cemetery’<\/strong><\/h2>\nMessina Denaro was born in Sicily on April 26, 1962, to a known Mafia boss. Nicknamed \u2018\u2018Diabolik,\u201d after a comic book criminal who couldn\u2019t be caught, he began his criminal career as a hitman. He quickly rose through the ranks under the ruthless boss, Salvatore Riina, known as Belva, or \u201cThe Beast.\u201d<\/p>\n
Messina Denaro was suspected of more than 50 murders. He once boasted that he \u201cfilled a cemetery all by himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
When 100 agents of the anti-Mafia Carabinieri raided the health facility where he was being treated in January, they found a figure who was sick and frail and who readily admitted his identity. Messina Denaro was tired of running.<\/strong><\/p>\nOn Friday, he slipped into an \u201cirreversible coma,\u201d according to Italian media. During his last days, his daughter, whom he met for the first time after his arrest, was by his bedside.<\/p>\n
\u201cA man who has done so much harm to his land has died,\u201d said Enzo Alfano, the mayor of Castelvetrano. \u201cIt will be decades more before we culturally put an end to a mentality, a culture \u2013 sometimes rampant \u2013 of illegality, of impunity, which he, his acolytes, and others before have been cultivating for too long.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Matteo Messina Denaro, believed to be the “capo di tutti capi,” the boss of all bosses of the Sicilian Mafia, has died at age 61. Dubbed \u201cthe last Godfather\u201d by the media, he was Italy\u2019s most wanted man for 20 years before his capture last January while undergoing chemotherapy for the colon cancer that claimed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":291357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\u2018Last Mafia Godfather\u2019 Matteo Messina Denaro Dead at 61<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n