Matteo Messina Denaro: Italy's most prolific mafia boss dies after 30 years on the run

Italy's most prolific mafia boss who spent three decades evading law enforcement, has died at the age of 61.

Matteo Messina Denaro had been arrested earlier this year and was facing a life in prison after being convicted of dozens of murders, bomb attempts and torture.

At the time of his arrest he was suffering from colon cancer but he continued to be held in a maximum-security prison in central Italy until recent weeks.

As Mr Denaro began to deteriorate, he was transferred to a San Salvatore hospital in L’Aquila, where he reportedly requested no aggressive medical treatment before falling into a coma.

The crime lord was detained by paramilitary police in January at a medical clinic where he was receiving treatment.

Mr Denaro, who had a power base in the port city of Trapani, in western Sicily, was considered the region's Cosa Nostra chief.

He was the last of three longtime fugitive top-level mafia bosses who had for decades eluded capture.

The arrest of Mr Denaro, that involved more than 100 officers, prompted celebrations in Palermo as people were seen in videos applauding and thanking police officers.

Mr Denaro was given several life sentences in absentia for his many crimes, most notably in 1992 for his involvement in the murders of anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

He received his most recent life sentence in 2020 for fatal bombings in Milan, Florence and Rome in the late 1990s, and for the murder and torture of the 12-year-old son of an enemy who was strangled to death.

Crime was a family affair for Messina Denaro, born to a known Mafia boss in Sicily on April 26, 1962.

Among those arrested in the 2009-2010 crackdown was his brother, Salvatore Messina Denaro, who refused to testify about his whereabouts.

In 2013, his sister, Patrizia Messina Denaro, was sentenced to 14 years in prison, a term she is still serving, for being a member of the Mafia.

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