Known as the king of escapes, Max Leitner died at his home in Merano.
He was 66 years old and his life was spent largely in crime, prison and escapes. He had recently been released. Leitner, considered the Vallanzasca of Alto Adige, had been having health problems for some time and was found by a friend on the ground unconscious.
Having ended up in prison for his robberies, he managed to escape five times from five different institutions. It all started in the 1980s. Arrests, convictions and escapes followed, as when in August 1990 he was arrested by the Austrian police during an attack on a cash van and subsequently escaped first from the Austrian prison and then from other prisons in Italy.
The last arrest dates back to three years ago. He had sworn that he would never return behind bars, also because he was seriously ill, but one night in September the doors of the prison in Bolzano reopened. Leitner, even when he was on probation, couldn't stay out of trouble.
September 2021: around half past midnight, a prostitute calls 112 because, while she was alone with a client, two shots were fired at her car, which fortunately was empty at the time. The police quickly traced back to the South Tyrolean who knew the woman. At the time of his arrest he faked a heart attack. In the car the officers found a P38 pistol, considered a weapon of war, a 22 caliber rifle with silencer, a teaser, a carnival mask and a fake police cap. Lately Leitner lived in Merano. Those who met him described a man marked by life.
(Unioneonline/ss)
