The former head of the Sicilian mafia Cosa Nostra, Matteo Messina Denaro, arrested in January after 30 years on the run, is in an irreversible coma in the L'Aquila hospital (center), where he was recently transferred from prison.
The doctors decided today to suspend his diet and since September 12, the treatment had been withdrawn and only palliative therapy was applied, according to local media.
The 61-year-old gangster had been suffering from colon cancer for three years and was arrested on January 16 when he went to undergo chemotherapy at a clinic in the Sicilian capital, Palermo.
He was later taken to the maximum security prison in L'Aquila (center) but after his health worsened, the authorities decided to transfer him to the prisoner unit of the hospital in that city, amidst strong security measures.
The criminal has left a "biological will" or last will document in which he asks that his life not be prolonged through treatments or machinery, according to the same sources.
On August 8, he underwent surgery for an intestinal obstruction but, although the surgery was successful, his health conditions entered a phase of "continual worsening" due to the cancer.
The mobster, known by nicknames such as Diabolik or U Siccu, was the most wanted criminal in Italy since 1993 for his multiple crimes and for participating in the bloody season of attacks in the early 90s, in which judges, among others, were murdered. anti-mafia Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, in 1992.
He later became the most wanted fugitive in Italy and one of the most dangerous internationally and his arrest, after a complicated investigation, was celebrated as historic in the country.
However, after his arrest, it was learned that he had hidden in the town of Campobello di Mazzara (Sicily, south), near his hometown, Castelvetrano, and that he also lived an almost normal life, as the restaurant receipts attest. and all kinds of belongings found in his lair.
Likewise, the network of alleged collaborators who had covered up for him in Sicily was also discovered: from his sister Rosalía, to his driver Giovanni Luppino, to his personal doctor, Alfonso Tumbarello, or the Bonafede family, who had lent him their last name.
