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Toto Riina, Sicilian mafia's ‘boss of bosses’, dies at 87 'He killed all his rivals': Totò Riina, Sicilian mafia's ‘boss of bosses’, dies at 87
(about 2 hours later)
The former “boss of bosses” Toto Riina, one of the most feared godfathers in the history of the Sicilian mafia, has died in hospital while serving multiple life sentences for masterminding a bloody strategy to murder Italian prosecutors and law enforcement officers trying to bring down the Cosa Nostra. Salvatore “Totò” Riina’s son was 17 years old when his father ordered him to strangle a kidnapped businessman in the countryside – a killing that would mark the boy’s formal entry into the Cosa Nostra.
Riina, who is thought to have ordered more than 150 murders, had been in a medically induced coma after his health deteriorated following two operations for cancer. It was just one example of the murderous reign of terror that Riina, who died in a prison hospital bed early on Friday morning, inflicted on Italy for nearly four decades as the “boss of bosses” of the Sicilian mafia.
He died in the prisoner wing of a hospital in Parma, in northern Italy, just before 4am local time on Friday, a day after he turned 87, according to the country’s main dailies and the Ansa news agency. Nicknamed “the Beast” because of his cruelty, Riina was an unrepentant criminal who not only assassinated his criminal rivals on an unprecedented scale in the 1980s and 90s, but also targeted the prosecutors, journalists, and judges who sought to stand in his way.
Nicknamed “the Beast” because of his cruelty, Salvatore “Toto” Riina led a reign of terror for decades after taking control of the Cosa Nostra in the 1970s. In the end, it was Riina who was defeated.
He notoriously ordered the murder of a 13-year old boy who was kidnapped in an attempt to stop his father from revealing mafia secrets. The boy was strangled and his body dissolved in acid. When a fellow mafiosi turned state witness, Riina ordered the deaths of 11 of his relatives in retaliation. The Sicilian mafia is far weaker now, left in disarray by Riina, who sought unsuccessfully to lead it from his prison cell in Parma. The crime syndicate still exists, and still shapes people’s social and economic lives in parts of Sicily, but it is a shadow of what it once was, undermined by the relentless scrutiny of Italian police and prosecutors and unable to regain its dominance of the illegal drug trade.
Prosecutors accused Riina, who was captured in 1993 after a tipoff from a rival, of masterminding a strategy, carried out over several years, to assassinate Italian prosecutors, police officials and others who were going after the Cosa Nostra when he allegedly held the helm as the so-called boss of bosses. If anyone beat Riina, it was the legacy of his most famous victim, Giovanni Falcone, the anti-mafia judge murdered in a car bomb Riina ordered in 1992.
The campaign ultimately backfired. After bombs killed Italy’s two leading anti-mafia magistrates, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two months apart in 1992, the state stepped up its crackdown on Sicily’s mafiosi. “Riina’s death marks the end of an era,” said Federico Varese, a mafia expert at Oxford University. “You can compare him to [the Colombian drug lord] Pablo Escobar. Both launched a direct attack against the state and that created a backlash.”
Riina was captured in a Palermo apartment six months after Borsellino and his police escorts were killed. He refused to collaborate with law enforcement after his capture. Riina was serving multiple life sentences after convictions for ordering 150 murders, though experts believe the true figure was much higher. He died while he was in a medically induced coma following cancer treatment.
In July, a court denied a request by Riina’s family to transfer him to house arrest because of his failing health. Doctors said at the time that the former boss was “lucid”. He had been caught on a wiretap this year saying he “regrets nothing … They’ll never break me, even if they give me 3,000 years” in jail. In his birth city of Corleone, immortalised as a mafia stronghold by The Godfather book and film trilogy, responses to Riina’s death were mixed. While young people saw the death as a chance for the town to escape its corrupt reputation, elderly people recalled Riina with fondness, describing the mafia boss as a gentleman.
“God have mercy on him, as we won’t,” an association for victims told the Fatto Quotidiano daily. “When Riina was around, everybody had a job here in Corleone,” said Paolo, 77. “These men gave us jobs. I knew him. I knew him very well. It’s a day like the other as you can see. But not a day to celebrate.”
“Riina’s death marks the end of an era,” said Federico Varese, a mafia expert at Oxford. “You can compare him to Pablo Escobar. Both launched a direct attack against the state and that created a backlash. Because ultimately a democratic state can be stronger than the mafia and – with a lot of pain – the state succeeded in putting huge pressure on the Cosa Nostra.” Riina rose to power in the mid-1970s, when he became the de facto leader of the Corleone crime family. Sicily had become a hub for the heroin trade into the US following the Vietnam war, and Riina became fixated on the narcodollars that he saw flowing to his rivals in Palermo.
The Sicilian mafia is far weaker today than it was, experts say, and – under intense pressure from Italian police and prosecutors – has been unable to regroup and reorganise despite attempts by Riina to lead the organisation from his prison cell in Parma. He created new alliances and staged a bloody coup using his death squads, said John Dickie, a mafia expert and author of Mafia Republic. “He assassinated his rivals. He killed all of them, hundreds of them, he literally ethnically cleansed them out of Palermo,” Dickie said.
The son of a poor farmer, Riina was born on 16 November 1930 in Corleone, a Sicilian hilltop town near Palermo that would become synonymous with the mafia thanks to Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather film trilogy. Mario Francese was the first journalist to expose the role of Riina and the Corleonesi within the Sicilian mafia and was killed in 1979. “I have never sought revenge for my father’s death, only justice,” his son Giulio, a journalist, said on Friday.
On Friday a Corleone priest said he agreed with church authorities in Palermo who had determined that Riina would not be given a church funeral. While other mafia bosses were also brutal, Riina was less invested in maintaining peace, and less closely linked to politicians. His rise marked a new level of violence: he ordered the notorious murder of a 13-year old boy who was kidnapped, strangled, and dissolved in acid, to send a message to those who might turn against him – and the Italian state was forced to respond.
“I can understand the suffering of Riina’s family with this loss. But he was the head of the the mafia and no sign of redemption ever came from him. That’s why I agree with the church with the decision of not celebrating his funeral,” said Don Luca Leone, a priest in the church of San Leoluca. The so-called Maxi trial, a series of cases beginning in 1986 that targeted the mafia, led to the indictment of nearly 500 mafiosi, many of whom who were sentenced to life in prison. The trials represented a formal acknowledgement of how pervasive the mafia was in Sicily.
It was a sign of how much the church’s relationship with the mafia has changed, particularly since the election of Pope Francis, a tough critic of organised crime. Riina responded with brute force: ordering the murders of Falcone and, two months later, another judge, Paolo Borsellino. He also mounted more attacks on the Italian mainland in an effort to get the state to back down.
Since the end of the second world war, the church had been accused of pandering to the mafia. In 1974, Father Agostino Coppola, a parish priest in Cinisi, Sicily, secretly celebrated the marriage of Toto Riina while he was on the run. It did not.
Riino was young when his father and a brother were blown up trying to extract gunpowder from an unexploded American bomb in 1943. By the time he was 19 he had killed his first victim. Riina was arrested in Palermo in 1993. Counted among his official victims was Piersanti Mattarella, the president of Sicily, who was shot dead in his car in 1980. His brother, Sergio, now serves as Italy’s head of state.
Riino started out as a foot soldier under boss Luciano Leggio before moving up through the ranks, going on the run in 1969 but continuing to lead first the Corleone clan and then the entire mafia from his hiding place. Although Riina was the subject of special measures to to cut off his ability to communicate from prison, he still made attempts, and never ceded his title of the boss of bosses.
Riina’s relatives were given permission by Italy’s health ministry on Thursday for a rare visit to say goodbye. In July, as his cancer worsened, a court denied his family’s request to transfer him home to Sicily. Doctors said he was still lucid, and he was caught on wiretap this year saying he regretted nothing.
“You’re not Toto Riina to me, you’re just my dad. And I wish you happy birthday, Dad, on this sad but important day. I love you,” one of his sons, Salvatore, wrote on Facebook. “They’ll never break me, even if they give me 3,000 years,” he said.
Agence France-Presse and Associated Press contributed to this report. Many rivals of Riina fled to the US during his years of terror, some of whom have came back to try to re-establish the Cosa Nostra’s dominance.
The last time the crime network’s governing committee met was in 1993. “To the best of our knowledge they have tried twice and everyone trying to attend has been arrested both times,” Dickie said.
Corleone was deserted on Friday except for people who had gathered at the main square. A local priest said he agreed with church authorities in Palermo, who have already determined that Riina would not be given a church funeral.
“I can understand the suffering of Riina’s family with this loss. But he was the head of the the mafia and no sign of redemption ever came from him,” said Don Luca Leone.