PALERMO (Sicily, Italy), Jan 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Italy’s most-wanted Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro has been arrested in Sicily after 30 years on the run.
Messina Denaro was reportedly detained in a private clinic in Sicily’s capital, Palermo, where he was receiving treatment for cancer.
He is alleged to be a boss of the notorious Cosa Nostra Mafia and he was tried and sentenced to life in jail in absentia in 2002 over numerous murders.
More than 100 members of the armed forces were involved in his arrest.
Italian media reported that Messina Denaro was captured just before 10 am and taken to a secret location by the Carabinieri. He was reportedly visiting the clinic under a fake name for a course of chemotherapy.
Italians were glued to their screens on Monday morning when news of the arrest of the mafia boss broke.
The authorities said Messina Denaro did not attempt to run when he realised the operation was taking place, and that he admitted to being the man the Carabinieri were searching for as soon as they approached him.
After the arrest, tributes to the work of the armed forces poured in from across the political spectrum.
Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, whose brother Piersanti was killed by Cosa Nostra in 1980, congratulated the minister of the interior and the carabinieri military police.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni travelled to Sicily and visited the memorial to Giuseppe Falcone and the other victims of the 1992 bombing near Palermo, where she observed a minute’s silence.
Meloni also thanked the armed forces for their work in detaining the “most important member of the mafia criminal group”, adding: “This is a great victory for the state.” — NNN-AGENCIES
