U.K News

Italy: No 1 wanted Mafia boss held after 30 years on the run

Published

2 years ago

2023-01-16

ROME, Italy – Matteo Messina Denaro was caught at a private clinic in Sicily on Monday after being on the run for 30 years. He was a convicted Mafia boss who ordered some of the most brutal killings in the country.

According to Carabinieri Gen. Pasquale Angelosanto, who heads the police force’s special operations team, Messina Denaro was apprehended at a Palermo clinic where he received treatment for an unidentified medical issue.

In the pouring rain, he was brought down the front steps of the posh clinic by a pair of Carabinieri officers, each holding one arm. Messina Denaro was dressed in a brown leather jacket with shearling trim, a matching white-and-brown skull cap, and his signature tinted glasses. His face seemed tired, and he was staring straight ahead.

He was a young man when he went into hiding and is now 60 years old. Even though he was on the run, Messina Denaro was thought to be the most powerful Cosa Nostra leader in Sicily. His power base was the port city of Trapani in western Sicily.

Top Level Mafia Boss

He was the last of three top-level Mafia bosses who had been on the run for decades but had never been caught. Hundreds of police officers had spent years trying to find him.

Italian news outlets say that when Carabinieri asked the fugitive in the clinic if he was Messina Denaro, he said that he was.

Palermo Chief Prosecutor Maurizio De Lucia said that the fugitive was going by the alias Andrea Bonafede. The surname approximately translates to “trustworthiness” in Italian.

Messina Denaro went before a Palermo court shortly after his detention, where a judge sought to check his identity and asked basic questions to fill out paperwork.

When the judge reminded Messina Denaro that he had to answer truly, he replied, “Aware.” When asked what he did for a living, he said “farmer,” adding that his brother was a banker and his four sisters were housewives.

Trapani Italy The Base Of His Crime Clan

According to detectives, he gave the address Castelvetrano, a farm village near Trapani that was the power base of his crime clan and where he was assured of logistical support during his period as a fugitive.

He also informed the court that he was one of six children, one of whom worked in finance.

The brief session finished with Messina Denaro saying to the unidentified judge, “Thank you, good day.”

Messina Denaro faces several life sentences after being tried in absentia and convicted of hundreds of killings.

He is scheduled to be imprisoned for the 1992 bombs in Sicily that murdered senior anti-Mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, and Falcone’s wife and several of his bodyguards. He was also convicted of the murder of a Mafia turncoat’s young boy, who was abducted and strangled before being dissolved in a vat of acid.

30 Years After The Capture Of “Boss of Bosses.”

The arrest happened 30 years and a day after the capture of convicted Mafia “boss of bosses” Salvatore “Toto” Riina in a Palermo apartment on Jan. 15, 1993, Messina Denaro went into hiding in the summer of the same year when the Italian state tightened its grip on the Sicilian criminal syndicate in the aftermath of the Falcone and Borsellino killings.

Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, says that Messina Denaro’s arrest is a “major success of the state” that shows it won’t give up against the Mafia.

Bernardo Provenzano, the head of the Mafia in Italy, was caught in a farmhouse in Corleone, Sicily, in 2006. He had been on the run for 38 years, setting a record for the longest time. Once Provenzano was apprehended, the emphasis shifted to Messina Denaro, who eluded capture until Monday despite multiple confirmed sightings.

The fact that the three senior executives were eventually apprehended in the heart of Sicily while living a hidden life for decades would not surprise Italy’s police and prosecutors. According to law enforcement, such bosses rely on contacts and the confidentially of fellow mobsters and complicit family members to move them from hideaway to hideout, providing food, clean clothing, and communication, as well as an omerta code of silence.

He Had A String Of Lovers On The Run

On the other hand, according to investigators, Messina Denaro traveled overseas while a fugitive, notably to Marseille, a French port city, where he got surgery some years ago.

Riina and Provenzano spent their final years in the harshest Italian jail conditions designated for unrepentant organized crime bosses, refusing to cooperate with authorities.

Messina Denaro was thought to have led a more luxurious life while hiding from police for decades, leading some to assume that he could help with authorities in exchange for more lenient jail circumstances.

According to Italian media reports, he had a string of lovers during his years on the run and spent time playing video games.

One of his girlfriends was arrested and convicted of keeping him hidden for a period while he was on the run. While he had a weakness for women, Messina Denaro could be cruel, according to Italian media, strangling a pregnant woman.

He Kept In Touch With Lovers

Messina Denaro wrote a letter to his then-girlfriend shortly after going into hiding, claiming, “You’ll hear gossip about me, they’ll depict me like the devil, but it’s all falsehoods,” ANSA reported.

Mafia bosses frequently utilize handwritten notes known as “Pizzini” to avoid being tracked down by cellphone use. When police apprehended Provenzano in his rustic, almost primitive hideaway in the countryside, they discovered a stockpile of such notes.

With the 1990s crackdown on Sicily’s Cosa Nostra, the island’s Mafiosi began to lose their influence in Italy compared to other organized crime syndicates.

While a small army of traitors considerably damaged the Sicilian Mafia, the ‘ndrangheta syndicate, situated in the “toe” of the Italian peninsula, progressively surpassed Cosa Nostra in reach and power on the mainland. Unlike the crime syndicates of Sicily, the ‘ndrangheta recruits its footsoldiers through familial ties, making it less vulnerable to turncoats. The ‘ndrangheta is today one of the most powerful cocaine smugglers.

However, the Sicilian Mafia continues to operate narcotics trafficking enterprises. Other lucrative illegal businesses include the infiltration of public works contracts and the extortion of small business owners who are threatened if they do not pay “protection money” every month.

SOURCE – (AP)

Related Topics:italy mafia mafia boss mafia boss arrested

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London Hit With Heavy Snow as Temperatures Plummet

Published

5 days ago

2024-11-19

Geoff Brown

London, England, has been gripped by an Arctic freeze, with temperatures dipping well below zero, snow forcing trains to stop, and over 200 schools closing in and across the UK.

Commuters faced traffic mayhem as Braemar in Aberdeenshire recorded the coldest temperature in the UK this early in the season since 1998, at -11.2C (12.2F).

Today, the Met Office issued three yellow weather warnings for snow and ice across the Midlands and North of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

The UK Health Security Agency issued the season’s first amber cold weather health advisory, warning that circumstances could be hazardous to vulnerable people.

Poor weather hampered rail travel, with no trains running between Nottingham and Worksop or between Llandudno and Blaenau Ffestiniog in North Wales.

A couple walks on the snow-covered ground at Pavillion Gardens in Buxton, Derbyshire.

Northern services in Yorkshire between Bradford and Huddersfield, Hebden Bridge to Halifax, and Halifax to Hull were all disrupted while flooding at Ulverston in Cumbria caused delays between Barrow-in-Furness and Lancaster.

Around 130 Welsh schools closed in Wrexham, Powys, Denbighshire, and Flintshire, with closures also reported in Birmingham, Nottinghamshire, and Derbyshire.

Nearly 5 inches (12 cm) of snow fell at Watnall in Nottinghamshire, with 3 inches (8 cm) at Cranwell in Lincolnshire and 2 inches (5 cm) at Lake Vyrnwy in Powys, Wales.

The Met Office issued warnings that vehicles might become trapped, power outages could occur, remote communities could be shut off, and falling on ice could cause injury.

England has a yellow warning until 11 a.m., while Scotland has a warning until 10 a.m. tomorrow. Another warning for Northern Ireland expired at 10 a.m.

The UK Health Security Agency issued an amber cold weather health notice for the East and North of England, the Midlands, Yorkshire, and the Humber.

Yellow health alerts went into effect for the South East, South West, and London at 8 a.m. today and will run until 6 p.m. on Saturday.

National Rail warned that the cold weather would impair several routes on northern rail services until at least 2 p.m. today.

Merseyrail issued a notice informing passengers that due to the possibility of snow and ice covering tracks, the first train on each line in North West England would run without passengers to allow conditions to be examined.

National Highways also issued a strong amber weather advisory for snow, indicating that the M1 in Leeds and Sheffield, the M56 in Manchester, junction 39 of the M6, and junctions 21-23 of the M62 may see interruption.

WEATHER WARNING 1: The Met Office snow warning in Northern Ireland terminated at 10 a.m. today.

WEATHER WARNING 2: A separate snow and ice warning for Northern England until 11 a.m. today.

WEATHER WARNING 3: Scotland’s snow and ice warning is live until 10 a.m. tomorrow.

The Met Office, which characterized the weather as ‘the first taste of winter,’ said heavy snow will cause problems in England, with Derbyshire being the most vulnerable.

According to Dan Suri, the Met Office’s chief meteorologist, a low-pressure system will move eastward on Monday night.

The related frontal system, which marks the border between cold air in the north and milder weather in the south, may deliver disruptive snow to certain locations between Monday evening and Tuesday morning.

Dr. Agostinho Sousa of the UK Health Security Agency stated, “This is the first amber Cold Weather Health Alert of the season, but we can expect more as winter approaches. It is critical to check in on vulnerable friends, family, and neighbors to ensure they are well prepared for the onset of cold weather.”

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Windsor Castle Robbed While Royal Family Slept

Published

6 days ago

2024-11-19

Geoff Brown

UK police report two men broke into the Windsor Castle estate, home to Prince William and Catherine and their three children and stole two vehicles.

According to the Sun newspaper, the robbers broke into a farm building on the Windsor estate and stole a black Isuzu pick-up truck and a red quad bike stashed in a barn.

The Prince and Princess of Wales reportedly arrived at their estate home during the nighttime burglary.

Thames Valley Police stated the individuals ran to the Old Windsor/Datchet area, but no arrests have been made.

“Offenders entered a farm building and stole vehicles,” the police added. An investigation is underway regarding the incident.

There have been previous security incidents at Windsor. On Christmas Day in 2021, an intruder was apprehended on the grounds of Windsor Castle. Jaswant Singh Chail, who was equipped with a crossbow, received a nine-year prison sentence.

The Windsor estate, located west of London, spans 15,800 acres and contains functioning farms, conservation areas, Windsor Great Park, and well-known royal attractions, including Windsor Castle.

Windsor Castle received 1.4 million visitors last year, making it the UK’s most popular royal tourist site.

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Britain’s Conservative Party Elects Kemi Badenoch as Leader

Published

3 weeks ago

2024-11-02

Ana Wong

Conservatives pick Kemi Badenoch as party leader

U.K. Conservatives pick Kemi Badenoch as their party's new leader

Britain’s Conservative Party elected outspoken MP Kemi Badenoch as its new leader on Saturday, making her the first woman of color to lead a major British political party.

She has promised to give the right-of-center Tories “renewal” by advocating for a smaller state and rejecting identity politics.

The new leader faces a daunting challenge in restoring the party’s reputation after years of division, scandal, and economic turbulence, hammering Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s policies on key issues such as the economy and immigration and returning the Conservatives to power in the 2029 election.

“The task that stands before us is tough but simple,” Kemi Badenoch said in a victory address to a room full of Conservative legislators, staff, and journalists in London. She stated that the party’s role was to hold the Labour administration accountable while developing commitments and a government strategy.

Addressing the party’s electoral defeat, she stated, “We have to be honest — honest about the fact that we made mistakes, honest about the fact that we let standards slip.”

“The time has come to tell the truth, to stand up for our principles, to plan for our future, to reset our politics and our thinking, and to give our party, and our country, the new start that they deserve,” according to Badenoch.

Kemi Badenoch was Born in London

Kemi Badenoch, a business secretary in Sunak’s cabinet, was born in London to Nigerian parents and grew up in West Africa.

The former software engineer positions herself as a disruptor, advocating for a low-tax, free-market economy and promising to “rewire, reboot, and reprogram” the British state. Like her adversary Jenrick, she has opposed multiculturalism and advocated for decreased immigration, but unlike him, she has not asked that Britain abandon the European Convention on Human Rights.

Kemi Badenoch, a self-proclaimed hater of wokeness, opposes identity politics, gender-neutral toilets, and government initiatives to reduce carbon emissions in the United Kingdom. During the leadership race, she was chastised for claiming that “not all cultures are equally valid” and implying that maternity pay was excessive.

Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London, predicted that under Badenoch, the Conservative Party would “swing to the right both in terms of its economic and social policies.”

He foretold that Badenoch will follow “what you might call the boats, boilers and bathrooms strategy …. focusing very much on the trans issue, the immigration issue and skepticism about progress towards net zero.”

Conservative Party Becoming More Diverse

While the Conservative Party is unrepresentative of the country as a whole, with a decreasing membership of 132,000 mostly affluent, elderly white men, its higher echelons have become significantly more diverse.

Badenoch is the Tories’ fourth female leader, following Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May, and Liz Truss, who became prime ministers.

She is the second Conservative leader of color, following Sunak, and the first with African heritage. The center-left Labour Party has a more diversified membership, but its leaders have always been white men.

In a more than three-month leadership contest, Conservative MPs narrowed the field from six to two in a series of votes before presenting the last two to a vote of the party’s membership.

Both finalists were from the party’s right-wing and claimed they could reclaim votes from Reform U.K., the hard-right, anti-immigrant group led by populist leader Nigel Farage that has eroded Conservative support.

However, the party lost many votes to the winning party, Labour, and the centrist Liberal Democrats, and some Conservatives are concerned that tacking right may move the party away from popular sentiment.

Kier Starmer’s Labor government has had a difficult first few months in power, plagued by unfavorable headlines, fiscal woes, and a sinking approval rating.

However, Bale stated that the historical record implies Badenoch’s chances of leading the Conservatives back to power in 2029 are slim.

“It’s quite unusual for someone to take over when a party gets very badly beaten and manage to lead it to election victory,” according to him. “However, Keir Starmer did just that after 2019. So there are records to break.”

Source: AP