One of the most feared Italian Mafia boss Salvatore Toto Riina has reportedly died in a prison hospital while serving a multiple life sentences in prison. Italy's Ministry of Justice made this known on Friday in a statement released to newsmen.
According to the statement, Toto was allowed a bedside visit from his family on Thursday when he was celebrating his 87th birthday, at the hospital in Parma, where he was serving 26 life sentences for dozens of murders committed between 1969 and 1992.
A report by Al-Jazeera says Toto grew up in the poverty-stricken countryside of Corleone on the island of Sicily and was first sentenced for murder in 1949 at the age of 19. He climbed the ranks of the Sicilian Mafia, or Casa Nostra, by systematically eliminating his opponents, including two of Italy's top prosecutors.
"The 1992 killings of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were carried out after Toto said the prosecutors would be "slaughtered like tuna". He was captured in Palermo in 1993 and held under a strict prison regime designed to keep top Mafia leaders in isolation.
His two sons, "Giovanni and Giuseppe, were also involved in the Mafia. Giovanni was sentenced to life in prison for four murders in 2001, after his capture in 1997. His younger brother, Giuseppe, was sentenced in 2004 for various crimes, including extortion and money laundering."
