Matteo Messina Denaro died during the night, just before 2 am in L'Aquila hospital.
The latest Cosa Nostra massacre was arrested last January after more than 30 years on the run. He suffered from a serious form of colon cancer and had been in an irreversible coma for several days.
The body, at the disposal of the Palermo judicial authority, is now found in one of the basements of the hospital morgue. An autopsy has been ordered.
A sort of infirmary had been set up in the super prison, adjacent to the cell, where Messina Denaro had undergone chemotherapy. In these months of detention, the Castelvetrano mafia boss underwent surgery twice in hospital. He never recovered from the second operation, which is why the doctors decided not to send him back to his cell but to treat him in a maximum security room.
On Friday, on the basis of the living will left by the boss who refused the aggressive treatment, his diet was cut off and he was declared in an irreversible coma.
The Health Directorate of the ASL of L'Aquila has begun to organize the phases following the death and those of the return of the body to the family, represented by the niece and lawyer Lorenza Guttadauro and by the young daughter Lorenza Alagna, recently recognized and met for the first time in maximum security prison in April. The girl, with the boss's niece and sister Giovanna, has been by his side in the last few days.
Messina Denaro was 61 years old.
(Unioneonline/ss)