Posted By: Hollander
'Support network' for Messina Denaro smashed - 05/10/17 02:46 PM
'Support network' for Messina Denaro smashed
14 arrested in Sicily
(ANSA) - Rome, May 10 - Italian police on Wednesday said they had smashed a "support network" for fugitive Cosa Nostra No. 1 Matteo Messina Denaro, arresting 14 people.
The 14 are suspected of mafia conspiracy, illegal weapons possession and other mafia-related crimes.
Police said they had found evidence that, from his hiding place, the Sicilian Mafia leader intervened to "ease friction among clans".
Messina Denaro, now 53, has been on the run since 1993 and is on Interpol's list of the world's 10 most wanted fugitives.
He has not been seen in public in over 20 years. An informant in 2014 helped authorities update their facial composite of the Mafia boss.
In March a trial began in Caltanissetta in which he is accused of being among those who ordered the 1992 bomb murders of anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
Cosa Nostra mobsters turned State's witnesses Francesco Geraci and Vincenzo Sinacori told investigators Messina Denaro took part in a September 1991 Mafia summit to plan Falcone's assassination.
Jailed boss of bosses Toto' Riina, who allegedly chaired that summit, has already been convicted of ordering the hits on Falcone and Borsellino.
Another former Mafia No.1, Bernardo Provenzano, who died in jail last July, was also found guilty of commissioning the murders.
Falcone was assassinated by a huge bomb under the Palermo-Palermo airport highway at Capaci along with his wife Franvesca Morvillo and three police escorts on May 23, 1992.
Borsellino was killed by a massive car bomb on July 19, 1992, together with his five police escorts in the via D'Amelio near his mother's home in Palermo.
http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2017/05/...6273cc54f6.html
14 arrested in Sicily
(ANSA) - Rome, May 10 - Italian police on Wednesday said they had smashed a "support network" for fugitive Cosa Nostra No. 1 Matteo Messina Denaro, arresting 14 people.
The 14 are suspected of mafia conspiracy, illegal weapons possession and other mafia-related crimes.
Police said they had found evidence that, from his hiding place, the Sicilian Mafia leader intervened to "ease friction among clans".
Messina Denaro, now 53, has been on the run since 1993 and is on Interpol's list of the world's 10 most wanted fugitives.
He has not been seen in public in over 20 years. An informant in 2014 helped authorities update their facial composite of the Mafia boss.
In March a trial began in Caltanissetta in which he is accused of being among those who ordered the 1992 bomb murders of anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
Cosa Nostra mobsters turned State's witnesses Francesco Geraci and Vincenzo Sinacori told investigators Messina Denaro took part in a September 1991 Mafia summit to plan Falcone's assassination.
Jailed boss of bosses Toto' Riina, who allegedly chaired that summit, has already been convicted of ordering the hits on Falcone and Borsellino.
Another former Mafia No.1, Bernardo Provenzano, who died in jail last July, was also found guilty of commissioning the murders.
Falcone was assassinated by a huge bomb under the Palermo-Palermo airport highway at Capaci along with his wife Franvesca Morvillo and three police escorts on May 23, 1992.
Borsellino was killed by a massive car bomb on July 19, 1992, together with his five police escorts in the via D'Amelio near his mother's home in Palermo.
http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2017/05/...6273cc54f6.html
