The sister of Matteo Messina Denaro,
the Mafia boss caught in a Palermo cancer clinic in mid-January
after 30 years on the run, was arrested Friday on suspicion of
helping him run his operations while a fugitive.
The Carabinieri of the ROS special unit arrested Rosalia
Messina Denaro on charges of mafia association.
According to investigators, the woman helped her brother evade
capture for 30 years and acted on his behalf as the 'cashier' of
the 'family', while also running the transmission network of the
'pizzini' (boss' orders and instructions), thus enabling the
mafia boss to maintain relations with his men during his long
period as a fugitive from justice.
It was in fact a detailed note on Messina Denaro's health
condition, written by Rosalia and hidden by her in the cavity of
a chair, that gave investigators the input that led to the mafia
leader's arrest on 16 January, according to the probe led by
Palermo Prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia and Deputy Prosecutor Paolo
Guido.
The pizzino was discovered by the ROS special branch Carabinieri
on 6 December while they were bugging the woman's home.
A Palermo Preliminary Investigations Judge (GIP) said the two
siblings met on a regular basis during Messina Denaro's 30-year
flight from justice.
She started seeing him more often after he told her he had
cancer, the GIP said.
Messina Denaro, 60, is now being treated for cancer in a special
chemotherapy facility that has been set up in a maxium-security
prison at L'Aquila in Abruzzo.
The Trapani superboss has been condemned to life in prison in
absentia for his involvement in dozens of murders, including the
1992 bombings that killed anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni
Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the killing of Giuseppe Di Matteo,
the 12-year-old son of a mobster-turned-State witness who was
strangled and dissolved in acid in 1996, and bombings at art and
religious sites in Milan, Florence and Rome that killed 10
people and hurt 40 more in 1993.
The mobster was seen by some experts as the boss of bosses
within the Mafia after the deaths of Bernardo 'The Tractor'
Provenzano in 2016 and Toto' 'The Beast' Riina in 2017,
although other experts said he was not at the very summit of
Mafia power, without being able to say who occupies that post,
possibly because it is vacant.
Reportedly idolised by Cosa Nostra's younger troops because of
his ruthlessness and playboy-like charisma, Messina Denaro
sealed a reputation for brutality by murdering a rival Trapani
boss and strangling his three-months-pregnant girlfriend.
The boss, who reportedly enjoyed orgies with Palermo women while
on the run, once said he could have filled a cemetery with those
he had killed.
He was reportedly helped dodge police by a "middle class Mafia",
not only around his fief at Trapani but also around Sicily,
Italian police have said.
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