Marking a symbolic end to centuries of existence of the Sicilian mafia, the ‘last godfather’, Matteo Messina Denaro, died of long illness. The mafia, known for its long tentacles of power and cold-hearted brutality to enemies, has held immense away over Europe’s underworld as well as the political system, in the past. Derano was the last of the powerful Mafiosos, and had headed the crime organisation with a ruthless fist.
The national news agency Ansa announced Denaro’s death on Sunday overnight. Denaro's death was confirmed by mayor of the central Italian city L'Aquila, Pierluigi Biondi. He said that his death was "following a worsening of his illness".
Biondi said that his death had "put an end to a story of violence and blood".
Who was Messina Denaro?
Denaro was born in Castelvetrano, Sicily, in 1962. Derano's father, Don Ciccio was the head of the local clan. Nicknamed as ‘Diabiolik’ or ‘U Siccu’ (the skinny one), Denaro, 61, thrived the family business building an illicit multibillion-euro empire in various sectors including waste, wind energy and retail.
Since 1993 he was been hiding from the police. In January following a tip off, Denaro was arrested from a private clinic in Palermo, where he had been periodically receiving treatment for cancer under a fake name Andrea Bonafede.
After his arrest, he was shifted to a top security prison in L'Aquila in Italy with around 160 inmates. Later, he was moved to San Salvatore hospital due to his deteriorating health. Also, according to his lawyer, Alessandro Cerella, he was not able to handle the tough jail regime he was being held under.
Reportedly, since Friday night, Denaro had been in an "irreversible coma".
In 2002, he was convicted and sentenced in absentia to life in jail for having killed or ordered the murder of dozens of people.
A mafia don, known for wearing expensive suits, Rolex watch and Ray-Ban sunglasses, was quite difficult to be caught as his recent photographs were unavaliable with the police. His photos were taken in the late 1980s and early 90s. The authorities had to reconstruct his appearance digitally using the latest computer technology and information provided by mafia insiders.
In an attempt to arrest Denaro, there were several mistaken identity cases as well. In 2019, the carabinieri military police raided a Sicilian hospital to arrest a man from Castelvetrano who was recovering in the neurology unit.
For 30 years, every time investigators seemed to get closer to their target, Denaro would disappear.
It was said that he had been hiding in Campobello di Mazara town, which was close to his mother’s house in western Sicily.
After his arrest, when he was produced in the court he had told the magistrates that "You arrested me only because of my illness.”
Unlike other Sicilian mafia bosses, Denaro always refused to cooperate with the authorities and expose crimes of the Cosa Nostra.
It is also said that he is behind the notorious murders by the Sicilian mafia including the bomb attacks that killed the anti-mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
“A man who has done so much harm to his land has died. It will be decades more before we culturally put an end to a mentality, a culture – sometimes rampant – of illegality, of impunity, which he, his acolytes and others before have been cultivating for too long,” Enzo Alfano, the mayor of Castelvetrano was quoted by The Guardian.
