Title : Mafia boss dies of cancer aged 87 in prison hospital
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Mafia boss dies of cancer aged 87 in prison hospital
- Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore 'Toto' Riina succumbed to his battle with cancer
- Riina was serving 26 life sentences and is believed to have ordered the killing of more that 150 men
- Riina once ordered the death of an informant's 13-year-old son, who was strangled and dissolved in acid
- Italy's high court caused outrage earlier this year when it ruled that Riina 'deserved to die with dignity' in his own home as he fought terminal cancer
- However the decision was left with a parole board which had not made a decision to free him and he died in prison hospital
Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore 'Toto' Riina succumbed to his battle with cancer on Wednesday
A notorious mob boss serving more than two dozen life sentences died in an Italian prison on Wednesday at the age of 87.
Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore 'Toto' Riina succumbed to his battle with cancer at a prison hospital in Parma shortly after being put in medically-induced coma.
Riina was serving 26 life sentences and is believed to have ordered the killing of more that 150 people.
Nickname 'The Beast' the most high-profile murders he ordered were those in 1992 of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who had worked fearlessly to bring more than 300 mobsters to trial in 1987.
From behind bars, he also famously ordered the brutal murder of a 13-year old boy Giuseppe Di Matteo who was kidnapped was strangled and his body dissolved in acid in a bid to stop his father from spilling Mafia secrets.
The boys father Santino Di Matteo made a desperate trip to Sicily to try to negotiate his son's release but on January 11, 1996 after 779 days, the boy, who by now had also become physically ill due to mistreatment, was finally strangled.
The body was subsequently dissolved in a barrel of acid to prevent the family holding a proper funeral at which they could mourn and to destroy evidence — a practice known colloquially as the 'lupara bianca'.
One of his life sentences was for ordering the hit, known as the 'Lazio Street Massacre', in which five people were gunned down in Palermo shootout.
'God have mercy on him, as we won't,' an association for victims told the Fatto Quotidiano daily.
The justice ministry had allowed his family a bedside visit at a hospital in Parma shortly before his death.
Riina was serving 26 life sentences and is believed to have ordered the killing of more that 150 men
Italy's high court caused outrage earlier this year when they ruled that Riina 'deserved to die with dignity' in his own home as he fought terminal cancer
He is believed to have first murdered for the Mafia aged 19 and followed that a year later by killing a man during an argument - landing him behind bars for a six-year manslaughter stretch.
Once out, he became a foot soldier for volatile and vain boss Luciano Leggio, eventually taking over from him at the end of the 1970s when the cigar-puffing fugitive was caught and jailed.
Riina went on the run himself in 1969, but continued to lead the Corleonesi clan from hiding, increasing his influence by bumping off rivals such as Filippo Marchese, a hitman who garroted his victims in a 'room of death'.
Riina would elude police efforts to snare him for almost a quarter of a century - without ever leaving Sicily - and took charge of Cosa Nostra's key businesses, from drug trafficking to kidnapping and racketeering.
His bloody victory in the Mafia War of the 1980s was to prove his undoing however, as mobsters from defeated rival families began turning state witness against him, and police tracked him to a house in Palermo.
Earlier this year, Italy's highest court ruled that due to Riina's terminal illness, he had a right to 'die with dignity' under house arrest like any other terminally ill prisoner.
The decision drew fierce criticism from across the Italy's political spectrum and wider society.
The decision was left with a parole board in the northern city of Bologna, near Parma, where Riina was being held, but failed to make a ruling before his death on Wednesday.
Giovanni, Riina's eldest son, followed in his father's footsteps and is now serving a life sentence in jail.
His other son, also a mobster, last year sparked outrage in Italy by giving an interview in which he described his childhood as 'nice' and refused to denounce the mob.
Giuseppe Salvatore Riina has written a book about growing up as the son of Italy's most wanted man, Salvatore 'Toto' Riina, and appeared on RAI's premier talkshow to promote it.
But not once during the interview did Riina criticise his father, and he refused to acknowledge the existence of the mafia, saying cryptically: 'It could be everything or it could be nothing'.
'The Beast's' other son, Giuseppe, is confined by law to the city of Padua.
Riina, due to his famed secrecy, is an enigmatic figure in Italian society. That has not stopped film makers from trying to dramatize his life on the silver screen.
In 1999, HBO produced the television film 'Excellent Cadavers' staring Victor Cavallo as Riina.
In 2007, Italian film makers produced a six-part miniseries on Riina based on his life and crimes.
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