Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore ‘Toto’ Riina succumb to his battle with cancer on Wednesday
A notorious mob boss serving more than two dozen life sentences died in an Italian prison on Wednesday.
Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore ‘Toto’ Riina succumbed to his battle with cancer at a prison hospital in Parma shortly after being put in medically-induced coma.
The justice ministry had allowed his family a bedside visit at a hospital in Parma shortly before his death.
He was 87-year-old.
Riina was serving 26 life sentences and is believed to have ordered the killing of more that 150 people, including a 13-year-old boy, while head of the feared Cosa Nostra.
Also known as ‘The Beast’, Riina was considered Sicily’s most violent Godfather, declaring a ‘war against the state’ and ordering the killings of magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992 bomb attacks that left nine others dead.
He was jailed a year later and became known as the Sicilian Mafia’s ‘Boss of all Bosses’ for his extreme brutality.
From behind bars, Riina ordered the killing of 13-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo who was strangled and his body dissolved in acid in 1996 to punish his father who had turned informant on the Mafia.
Riina was serving 26 life sentences and is believed to have ordered the killing of more that 150 men
Italy’s high court caused outrage earlier this year when they ruled that Riina ‘deserved to die with dignity’ in his own home as he fought terminal cancer
Earlier this year, Italy’s highest court ruled that due to Riina’s terminal illness, he had a right to ‘die with dignity’ under house arrest like any other terminally ill prisoner.
The decision drew fierce criticism from across the Italy’s political spectrum and wider society.
The decision was left with a parole board in the northern city of Bologna, near Parma, where Riina was being held, but failed to make a ruling before his death on Wednesday.
Giovanni, Riina’s eldest son, followed in his father’s footsteps and is now serving a life sentence in jail, the BBC reported.
‘The Beast’s’ other son, Giuseppe, is confined by law to the city of Padua.
Riina, due to his famed secrecy, is an enigmatic figure in Italian society. That has not stopped film makers from trying to dramatize his life on the silver screen.
In 1999, HBO produced the television film ‘Excellent Cadavers’ staring Victor Cavallo as Riina.
In 2007, Italian film makers produced a six-part miniseries on Riina based on his life and crimes.