Benedetto Santapaola, notorious Italian mafia boss, dies in prison aged 87

Cosa Nostra leader, who controlled most of eastern Sicily, dies while serving multiple life sentences for murder

Benedetto “Nitto” Santapaola, a Sicilian mafia boss and one of the most dangerous figures in Italian criminal history, has died aged 87.

Santapaola, who was widely believed to have been the architect of a campaign of bloodshed that scarred Italy in the 1980s and 1990s, died on Monday in a Milan prison where he was serving multiple life sentences. An autopsy has been ordered.

Before his imprisonment, Santapaola was regarded as one of the most powerful figures in the history of the Sicilian mafia, allied with Totò Riina – the self-styled “boss of bosses” – and Bernardo Provenzano, the Cosa Nostra’s most influential leaders. His base was in the city of Catania, from where he exerted control over much of eastern Sicily.

Among the atrocities attributed to him was the bombing at Capaci in May 1992, an attack that killed the anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone, his wife, Francesca Morvillo, and three of his bodyguards, and sent shockwaves through a country locked in a bitter struggle with organised crime.

After more than a decade on the run, Santapaola – nicknamed il cacciatore (the hunter) – was arrested in 1993 at a farmhouse outside Catania alongside his wife, Carmela Minniti. She was shot dead two years later by Giuseppe Ferone, a former member of a rival clan, who said he had acted out of revenge, seeking to inflict on the mafia boss the same pain he had suffered.

In 2003, Santapaola was convicted of ordering the 1984 murder of the investigative journalist Giuseppe Fava, who had exposed his criminal empire and political ties. Fava was shot five times in his car in Catania after he had gone to a theatre to watch his niece perform.

Fava’s son, Claudio, a former MEP and ex-president of Sicily’s anti-mafia commission, said he felt no hatred towards Santapaola. “I wasn’t capable of it,” he said. “And I feel no relief now that he’s gone.”

He recalled visiting the prison where Santapaola was being held. “He recognised me,” Fava said. “He came to the bars and said he was innocent, that he would shake my father’s hand when they met in heaven. I listened. It seemed a sad performance by a man imprisoned by his own legend.”

Santapaola, he added, had twice ordered Claudio’s own killing and forced him to live under police escort. “But what would have been the point of reminding him?”

Investigators believed Santapaola continued to run his clan from behind bars through trusted aides. Like other mafia bosses, he refused to collaborate with prosecutors, taking his secrets with him.

Fava added: “He died carrying with him, inside him, his secrets – the names and surnames of the unnameable protectors who guaranteed him the throne of Cosa Nostra.

“Among those who benefited from his power was the entire city that counted and commanded: journalists, prosecutors, police commissioners, colonels, publishers. The memory of those years … Santapaola dragged with him through his 33 years in prison. And now into the grave.”