Italy’s most wanted mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro arrested in Sicily

Italy’s most wanted mafia boss has been arrested after being on the run since 1993, in what the prime minister has described as a “great victory for the state”. Matteo

Messina Denaro was arrested in Palermo, Sicily, Italy’s Carabinieri police have confirmed. “The last godfather” was captured at a private clinic where he was receiving

treatment for an undisclosed medical condition, said Carabinieri Gen. Pasquale Angelosanto, who heads the police force’s special operations squad. Even while a fugitive,

Denaro, who had a power base in western Sicily, was considered Sicily’s Cosa Nostra top boss. Italy’s Prime Minister Giogia Meloni said the arrest proves the state “didn’t

give up in the face of the mafia”. “On the eve of the anniversary of the arrest of Totò Riina, another leader of organised crime is brought to justice,” she wrote on social

media. “My most sincere thanks, along with those of the entire government, go to the police force, and in particular to the Ros dei Carabinieri, to the national anti-mafia

prosecutor and to the Palermo prosecutor’s office for the capture of the most significant representative of the the mafia crime. “Prevention... of mafia crime, as attested

to the fact that the first Executive Act was about the harsh penitentiary regime for mafia, will continue to be a top priority of this Government.” Denaro has been sentenced

in absentia to a life term for his role in the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. He also faces a life sentence for his role in

bomb attacks in Florence, Rome and Milan which killed 10 people the following year.