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Italy: No 1 wanted Mafia boss held after 30 years on the run
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)
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has rejected a request from a 99-year-old WW2 for a meeting to discuss the frozen state pension policy for citizens living abroad. Starmer declined the meeting but offered an alternative meeting with Pensions Minister Emma Reynolds.
Anne Puckridge, who turns 100 this month, went from her home in Canada to agitate Keir Starmer’s Labour government over the state pension freeze.
The World War II veteran told the BBC that she is “angry” and “heartbroken” following a meeting with the pensions minister, who led her to believe that the government will not reconsider its policy of freezing the state pensions of some British people living abroad.
Anne Puckridge is one of approximately 453,000 British retirees living overseas who do not receive an annual increase in their state pension.
Pensions Minister Emma Reynolds agreed to a meeting after Sir Keir Starmer’s request to meet was denied owing to purported “pressures on his diary.”
Ms. Puckridge stated that the meeting in Parliament left her feeling “bitterly disappointed” and “disgusted”.
She stated that she had the idea Reynolds had been “polite enough and kind enough to come in and spend her time with her,” but that her mind had already been made up before the meeting began.
Ms Puckridge stated that she and her other campaigners would have to think carefully about what they could do from now on, but she assured them that they would take action.
State Pension Minister Reynolds thanked Ms Puckridge for the meeting and for sharing her insights.
A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) representative stated that the government recognizes that “people move abroad for various reasons, and we provide clear information on how this can affect their pensions.”
The policy of increasing the UK state pension for recipients living abroad has existed for many years.
Since she relocated to Canada in 2001 at the age of 76 to live closer to her daughter, Ms Puckridge has received £72.50 (C$129.00) per week.
Her state pension is now less than half the £169.50 (C$302.00) paid to seniors still residing in the United Kingdom. She told the BBC that frozen pensions touch all aspects of life.
“You’ve got to be careful about entertainment,” she told me. “You must realize that you cannot be as kind to your grandkids as you would like.
“You feel you’ve lost all sense of dignity, the government has thrown you away, you know, out of sight out of mind.”
Ms. Puckridge stated that when she alerted the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that she was moving to Canada, “they never said a word about [my] pension being frozen”.
“The first I knew about it was when my first rise was due,” she recalled.
“I didn’t understand it. So I wrote and enquired about it, and I was told no… you will not receive any additional pension rises when you leave the UK.” She said, “It’s the injustice of it that is so unfair, the fact that we were never warned.”
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British military expertise has been brought in to assist in identifying persons responsible for flying Air Force drones near US military locations. According to the BBC, 60 RAF troops have been dispatched to assist the US Air Force with its probe.
The Air Force drones were not deemed hostile, according to the USAF, who added that the sightings “fluctuated and varied between the bases” and “ranged in sizes and configurations”.
According to the Ministry of Defence, “We are supporting the US Air Force response.”
The announcement follows several recent reports of unmanned aerial vehicles sighted near RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk and RAF Feltwell in adjacent Norfolk.
There have been other reports of drone activity overnight. According to the USAF, the vehicles were few in number and modest in size.
A representative for the US Air Forces in Europe stated, “We can confirm that there were sightings yesterday during nighttime hours, but the number fluctuated and varied between the bases throughout the night.”
The official stated that since the first sightings on November 20th, there has been “no impact on residents or infrastructure, and they have not been identified as hostile.”
However, the Air Force drones remained under surveillance “to ensure the safety and security of the installations.”
They said, “We request individuals in the area to contact either local police or security forces if they see anything suspicious.”
‘Treat threats seriously’
Officials in the United States and the United Kingdom have not said who is responsible for the recent drone activity.
However, the BBC understands there were worries that a state actor could be involved.
In recent months, intelligence officials have warned of increasing Russian sabotage operations against Western countries supporting Ukraine.
RAF Mildenhall is primarily home to the USAF’s 100th Air Refuelling Wing; RAF Lakenheath is home to USAF F-35A and F-15E fighter jets; and RAF Feltwell is mainly concerned with logistics and provides housing for military personnel.
A spokesman for the MoD, which owns the bases, said: “We take threats seriously and maintain robust measures at defence sites.
“We are supporting the US Air Force response.”
The USAF has not said who it believed to be behind the incidents.
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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has ruled out holding an early general election after a petition calling for a second vote garnered two million signatures.
Over the weekend, a petition calling for another general election was started on the UK Parliament website. It cited Starmer’s failure to keep all his pledges made in the run-up to the previous election. By Monday mid-morning, it had surpassed two million signatures.
When asked about the petition, Starmer said he was “not surprised” that some individuals who did not vote for Labour in the previous election want a “re-run” of the poll.
He claimed that he had “inherited a lot of problems” from the previous administration and had resolved to “take the hard decisions first.”
Starmer ruled out an early general election, stating that only the Prime Minister can request that the King call a general election; it simply will not happen, he said.
This petition, started last week and sponsored by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, calls on the government to schedule a new general election.
To sign a petition, you must verify that you are a British citizen or resident and provide a postcode.
The petition states, “I would prefer there to be another general election. I believe the present Labour government has broken the pledges they made before the last election.”
The petition comes only five months after Labour won the July general election with 9.7 million votes and 412 seats in the House of Commons.
However, the Labour Party garnered only 35% of the vote, the lowest percentage gained by a single-party administration since the conclusion of WWII.
Some of the policies implemented by Starmer and his Labour government have received significant criticism, including an inheritance tax on farms, a reduction in winter heating payments, an increase in employers’ national insurance, and applying VAT to private school fees.
According to the most recent Ipsos political pulse poll, the Labour Party is unpopular, with 28% of the public favoring it and 49% opposing it.
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