Messina Denaro ex lover's home searched

(ANSA) - ROME, JAN 30 - Italian police on Monday searched the home of the former lover of Matteo Messina Denaro, the 30-year-old Mafia superboss recently caught at a Palermo cancer clinic after 30 years on the run.
    The house of Maria Mesi is in Bagheria , about 10km east of Palermo, some way from Messina Denaro's fief in the western city of Trapani.
    Police also searched the home of Mesi's brother, Francesco.
    Both have been investigated in the past for helping the boss evade justice for so long.
    Francesco Mesi plea-bargained a suspended sentence for this offence.
    Maria Mesi was arrested on June 14 2000 and was charged with renting a flat near palermo with two other persons in which Messina Denaro, who went missing in 1993, allegedly hid out.
    She was convicted in first and second instance of favouring the mafia, but the supreme Court of Cassation scrubbed the aggravating factor of mafia conspiracy because she was romantically involved with the fugitive superboss.
    Police have found three hideouts used by the boss in Campobello di Mazara, a town near Trapani. (ANSA).