A notorious Sicilian mafia boss who was behind several murders has died in an Italian prison.
Benedetto “Nitto” Santapola, one of the most powerful leaders of the Cosa Nostra mafia, has died at the age of 87 in a maximum security prison in Milan.
Known as “Il Cacciatore” (the hunter) or “Il lycantropo” (the thief), Santapola 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 behind bars.
The 87-year-old was serving multiple life sentences for murder and other crimes when he died.
Murders and massacres
While leading Cosa Nostra in Catania, Santapola 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 Italy’s most famous anti-Mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Santapola was convicted of being one of the instigators of the attack that killed several defense officers and Mr. Falcone’s wife.
He was convicted of ordering the murders of journalist Giuseppe Fava in 1984 and police inspector Giovanni Lizzio in 1992.
Mafia Wars
Santapola’s Mafia “family” has been involved in violent and bloody feuds with rivals in the 1980s against fellow mobster Alfio Ferlito and in the early 1990s against the Cursotti, Cappello and Pillera clans.
The subsequent mafia wars resulted in more than 220 murders in the city of Catania and the wider province in two years.
Carmela Minniti, Santapola’s wife, was by his side when he was arrested in 1993. Two years later she was shot dead by a former member of a rival mafia clan, who said he killed her in revenge for suffering the same pain Santapola had suffered.
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Santapola’s requests to be placed under house arrest or detained in a medical facility were repeatedly denied due to his health conditions, which include severe diabetes.
Prosecutors in Milan ordered an autopsy, but he died of natural causes after being hospitalized in late February, Italian media reported.
