Salvatore Riina, Sicilian Mafia’s ‘Boss of Bosses,’ Is Dead
- Godfather ordered killings of judges Falcone and Borsellino
- Took control in internal war which cost some 1,000 lives
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Salvatore “the Beast” Riina, the Sicilian mafia godfather who ordered the killings of judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, as well as politicians and mobsters, has died. He had turned 87 the day before his death.
Riina died in the early hours of Friday at the section for prisoners in Parma’s hospital, in northern Italy, according to newswire Ansa, which did not say where it got the information from. Ansa said he had been in a coma since the second of two operations in recent weeks. Serving a series of life sentences following his arrest in 1993, he had long suffered from heart problems.