The Italian news agency ANSA reports that Matteo Messina Denaro has been arrested after a 30-year search. He was reportedly arrested at a private clinic in Palermo where he was receiving treatment. He was detained by officers of the Special Operations Group (ROS, Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale).
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said Denaro’s arrest was “a victory for the state”. She also assured that the fight against the mafia “will continue unabated,” Bloomberg wrote.
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“The arrest of Matteo Messina Denaro is great news, it is a historic achievement. It is a day of celebration for the whole country. Congratulations to those who worked on it, from the investigators and the police. Today is the day of happiness. Well done. Long live Italy,” wrote Matteo Renzi, a senator from Florence.
“Thanks to the extraordinary work of the police and the judiciary, Matteo Messina Denaro has finally been arrested. Congratulations to the ROS for the operation carried out. Thanks to all the men and women who fight the mafia every day,” commented the Chairman of the Parliamentary Security Committee, Lorenzo Guerini.
Matteo Messina Denaro was born in 1962 in the Sicilian town of Castelvetrano. He belongs to a mafia family, and his father was a high-ranking member of Cosa Nostra. He became its chairman after its former boss, Bernardo Provenzano, was arrested by Italian authorities in 2006.
Denaro was sentenced to life in prison in absentia for dozens of murders, including the 1992 killings of prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. He also faces life in prison for his role in the 1993 bombings in Florence, Rome and Milan, which killed 10 people – The Guardian reports . Denaro had to write about himself: “I filled the cemetery with myself.”
In September 2022, 35 people were arrested in the Sicilian province of Trapani, accused of belonging to the “Diabolik” protection network, according to Bloomberg.
Sources: Agence France-Presse, ANSA, The Guardian, Bloomberg
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