‘Boss of bosses,’ 87, dies in prison
MILAN — Mafia “boss of bosses” Salvatore (Toto) Riina, who was serving 26 life sentences as the mastermind of a bloody strategy to assassinate both rivals and Italian prosecutors and law enforcement trying to bring down the Cosa Nostra, died early Friday. He was 87.
Riina (pictured) had been in a medically induced coma following two surgeries in recent weeks in the prison wing of a hospital in Parma, Italy.
One of Sicily’s most notorious Mafia bosses who ruthlessly directed the mob’s criminal empire during 23 years in hiding, Riina was serving the life sentences for multiple murder convictions, some dating back to the 1950s.
A farmer’s son from Corleone, a town with notoriety as a Mafia stronghold near Palermo, he carved out a particularly ruthless reputation. Rival bosses were mowed down in the 1970s and early 1980s in Palermo — at the rate of practically one a day in the Sicilian capital in those years — as Riina orchestrated his rise to power.
He went into hiding in 1969 after being ordered by the state to leave Sicily after serving a five-year sentence for Mafia association. He was captured in 1993 in Palermo, where he had an apartment hideout.
During the height of his power, prosecutors accused Riina of masterminding a years-long strategy to assassinate Italian prosecutors, police officials and others who were going after the mob.
Archbishop Michele Pennisi of Monreale said that a public funeral would not be allowed since Riina was a “public sinner.”