A notorious Sicilian mafia boss who was behind several murders has died in an Italian prison.
Benedetto “Nitto” Santapaola, who was one of the Cosa Nostra mafia’s most powerful leaders, died at the age of 87 in a high-security jail in Milan.
Santapaola, known as “il cacciatore” (the hunter) or “il licantropo” (the werewolf), led the mafia in the eastern Sicilian city of Catania from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
He was arrested in 1993 after 11 years on the run, but was accused of continuing to run the mafia from behind bars.
The 87-year-old was serving multiple life sentences for murder and other crimes when he died.
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Murders and massacres
While leading the Cosa Nostra in Catania, Santapaola expanded the mafia’s influence in controlling public contracts, extortion and drug trafficking.
He was often cited in investigations and trials related to a series of mafia massacres that plagued Italy in the 1980s and 1990s.
Among them were the 1992 murders of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two of Italy’s most famous anti-mafia prosecutors. Santapaola was convicted as one of the instigators of the attacks, which also killed several protection officers and Mr Falcone’s wife.
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He was also convicted of ordering the murders of journalist Giuseppe Fava in 1984 and police inspector Giovanni Lizzio in 1992.
Mafia wars
Santapaola’s mafia “family” was involved in violent and bloody feuds with rivals, like those against fellow mobster Alfio Ferlito in the 1980s and against the Cursoti, Cappello and Pillera clans in the early 1990s.
The latter mafia wars resulted in over 220 murders in the city of Catania and the wider province in two years.
Santapaola’s wife, Carmela Minniti, was by his side when he was arrested in 1993. She was shot dead two years later by a former member of a rival mafia clan, who said he killed her for revenge to make Santapaola feel the same pain he had suffered.
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Santapaola’s requests for house arrest or detention in a medical facility due to his health conditions, which included a serious form of diabetes, were repeatedly denied.
Prosecutors in Milan have ordered an autopsy, but Italian media reports he died of natural causes after being admitted to hospital in late February.
