[WATCH] Mafia 'boss of bosses' Toto' Riina dies aged 87

The notorious Sicilian Mafia boss was serving 26 life sentences and was believed to have ordered the killing of more than 150 men, including the 1992 murders of anti-mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino
 

Toto' Riina was known as the boss of bosses or 'The Beast'
Toto' Riina was known as the boss of bosses or 'The Beast'

Notorious Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore “Toto” Riina has died from terminal cancer at age 87. He passed away at Parma prison hospital, hours after the Justice Ministry allowed his family a bedside visit.

Riina had been in a medically induced coma for five days, after his health deteriorated following two recent surgeries.

The former Cosa Nostra boss was captured in Palermo in 1993 after 24 years on the Italian authorities' most-wanted list. He was serving 26 life sentences and was believed to have ordered the killing of more that 150 men. He was imprisoned under a law - known as the 41-bis - that imposes strict security for top mobsters, including isolation in prison and limited time outside their cells.

Riina, who was nicknamed 'The Beast' or 'The Boss of Bosses', was considered Sicily’s most violent Mafia boss. He led the notorious Sicilian mob in the 1980s and 1990s, and had declared a "war against the state".

He was behind a series of mafia bombing in Rome, Milan and Florence in 1993, which left 10 people dead. Two anti-mafia judges, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, were also killed by car bombs in 1992 under Riina’s command.

After he was jailed he also ordered the death of an informant’s 13-year-old son, who was strangled and dissolved in acid.

The US government had branded him "the most powerful, dangerous and feared criminal in the world."

Italy’s high court faced criticism earlier this year, when it ruled that Riina ‘deserved to die with dignity’ in his home. However, the request had been denied, and he died in prison hospital.

The Mafia boss’s eldest son, Giovanni, is also serving a life sentence in jail.

The Malta connection

It was in April 1993 that the now defunct Radio One Live had claimed that Toto Riina owned a farmhouse in Gozo.

The information was said to have come from the testimony of Riina’s driver, Baldassare di Maggio, to Italian magistrates.

The farmhouse was believed to have been registered under the name of Ninetta Bagheria, Riina’s wife.

However, research conducted by the fortnightly newspaper Alternattiva had thrown up nothing about the sale of property to anyone by the name of Bagheria since 1980.

It was not excluded that someone else appearing on Riina’s behalf may have bought the farmhouse.

The revelation was also raised in the Maltese parliament at the time but then Home Affairs Minister Louis Galea could only ask MPs to come forward with any information if they had any on the said claims.

A few weeks before the Gozo farmhouse revelations, in an interview with newspaper Alternattiva, Italian magistrate Antonino Caponnetto had highlighted how the mafia was using Malta’s nascent offshore set up to traffic gold. Out of the initial 1,000 offshore companies set up at the time, more than 800 were Italian-owned.