In his 30 years of evasion, Matteo Messina Denaro has resided nearly everywhere in Italy, most recently in Sicily, between Trapani and Palermo, where he was apprehended this morning inside the Maddalena clinic that he had (in disguise) entrusted with his chemotherapy treatments. And although though it took three decades to uncover it, "the activity of the ROS and the Police in recent years has greatly curtailed the network of cooperation enjoyed by Messina Denaro via several restrictive measures of those close to him".
This was described by Palermo's head prosecutor, Maurizio De Lucia, during a news conference on the afternoon of the day that would go down in history as the day in which Matteo Messina Denaro was apprehended. De Lucia begins, "We are very proud of the work of this morning, which concludes a long and difficult effort by all the police forces in Italy: we have captured the last mass murderer of the 1992-1993 period: a debt that the Republic owed to the victims of those years that has been partially repaid." An arrest that occurred, he emphasizes, "without the use of violence and, as we have seen from the photographs that have circulated, without the use of handcuffs, as befits a real democratic nation." Messina Denaro was immediately sent to jail, where he would stay under the 41-bis regime, also due to the fact that "his health circumstances are compatible with prison".
The former super fugitive "So far, doesn't talk or give directions, so we didn't even know what his face looked like until this morning. The capture is the most important thing right now, so we'll move on." The interceptions helped shape the outcome of the investigations, which has now become a hot subject in national politics, and a crystal-clear message has been sent from Palermo: "As if it needed to be said again, interception actions are crucial to the battle against mafia and non-mafia crimes; without them, investigations cannot be conducted, and no results can be obtained. Following that, we conducted inquiries at every level," De Lucia warns. "The mafia has not been beaten; the gravest error would be to believe that the game is done, but this is an essential step. In a metropolis like this, the response of the populace is also a significant indicator. There is no question that he has received safeguards in the past; nonetheless, we are now examining his current protections. There is a type of mafia bourgeoisie that supported him, and our inquiries into this are now ongoing".
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