Messina Denaro: How silence and compliance kept Mafia boss at large - BBC

Palermo residents couldn't person known for definite who the antheral being led to the constabulary car was.

After all, it had been 30 years since helium was past seen successful public.

But implicit a 100 members of the equipped forces had gathered successful the constrictive streets of Palermo that greeting - and radical knew of lone 1 transgression who could elicit that benignant of response.

Matteo Messina Denaro - the "boss of the bosses", the past fugitive - had been found.

Applause and cheers broke out. Somebody high-fived a policeman; others went successful for a hug; immoderate had tears successful their eyes. Everyone was beaming.

Later, Maria Falcone told Italian media she wished her member could person witnessed the scene.

Anti-mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone was murdered by Sicily's Cosa Nostra, spearheaded by Messina Denaro, successful 1992. It was the tallness of the "massacre season" that had plagued Italy successful the aboriginal 1990s.

At the time, Messina Denaro's organised transgression syndicate was attempting, done a sustained execution run that killed much than 20 people, to unit the authorities into negotiations astir the hard situation authorities for jailed Mafia associates.

Messina Denaro erstwhile reportedly boasted helium could "fill a cemetery" with his victims.

He was instrumental successful the 1993 kidnapping and sidesplitting of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 11-year-old lad of a mafioso-turned-state witness. The lad was held successful captivity for 2 years earlier being killed; his assemblage was dissolved successful acerb to forestall the household from burying him.

Messina Denaro besides ordered the sidesplitting of a rival Mafia brag and his large girlfriend.

A warrant was enactment retired for his arrest. Then, successful the summertime of 1993, helium vanished without trace. Reported sightings placed him everyplace from Venezuela to the Netherlands.

But it was successful Palermo - the bosom of his homeland of Sicily - that helium was caught.

This week, aft his arrest, constabulary uncovered 3 hideouts successful Campobello di Mazara, a sun-soaked colony 115km (70 miles) from Palermo - and 10km from his birthplace of Castelvetrano.

Quiet, tiny Campobello is not the benignant of spot 1 could ideate hiding successful precise easily.

Not that Messina Denaro appears to person led the beingness of a secretive outlaw.

It seems helium was a regular lawsuit of the section Bar San Vito; a neighbour said they often greeted 1 another.

It is an representation profoundly astatine likelihood with the 30-year hunt for the mobster.

Italy invests ample amounts of resources successful its anti-mafia operations - but the lawsuit of Messina Denaro shows that a compliant civilization of soundlessness tin inactive enactment a dent successful the state's conflict against organised crime.

Maurizio Bellacosa, transgression lawyer and instrumentality prof astatine LUISS University successful Rome, said that Messina Denaro "made afloat usage of Mafia culture" to stay undetected.

Mafia civilization worked arsenic a operation of intertwined elements, Prof Bellacosa told the BBC: "From the Mafia's wide beingness successful the territory, to a scarce oregon non-existent co-operation with investigators by society, to an entrenched codification of silence, particularly successful tiny towns and suburbs, wherever the authorities is often perceived arsenic absent."

The politician of Campobello, Giuseppe Castiglione, told Italian media helium had been "so dejected by the thought that Messina Denaro lived among america for astatine slightest a twelvemonth - due to the fact that present I cognize that my chap residents chose to spell down the roadworthy of complacency and hide their caput successful the soil instead".

However, soundlessness does not needfully mean assent.

The Mafia's tentacles agelong heavy into Sicilian society. Fear and the aged codification of soundlessness are inactive entrenched.

"Mafia-style relation works successful a precise elemental way: unit and intimidation provoke a information of subjugation and 'omertà' successful those involved," said Mr Bellacosa. "In essence, the Mafia uses fearfulness to execute its goals."

In the property league fixed by constabulary pursuing the arrest, Palermo authoritative Maurizio de Lucia said that Messina Denaro had apt been aided by the "Mafioso bourgeoisie" - referring to section professionals, entrepreneurs and politicians.

This is shown by the arrests made implicit the years of radical deemed adjacent to Messina Denaro. Palermo-based writer Tullio Filipponi said these were individuals who "accepted to unrecorded and collaborate with the Mafia, turning a unsighted oculus erstwhile Mafia associates request aesculapian examinations, appraisals oregon plus management."

This section web was recovered to beryllium aiding the mobster by laundering his money, said Mr Filipponi, and was "what culturally makes the quality and what needs to beryllium eradicated."

"Every Sicilian knows that the Mafia exists... [and] it has the powerfulness to power nine and exert power implicit the territory successful a capillary way."

Whether Messina Denaro was starring a beingness of retirement, oregon whether helium was inactive progressive and engaged successful transgression activities is unclear - and it whitethorn yet crook retired that his spectacular apprehension was the casual part.

Although the years of car bombs and heinous unit whitethorn beryllium over, astir experts hold that implicit the years, the Mafia has transformed into a little flashy yet arguably much insidious organisation.

Racketeering, intimidation and extortion person not gone away: "It is inactive here, arsenic is shown by the information that a godfather could stay hidden for truthful long."

In this context, the spontaneous applause connected the greeting of the apprehension was picked up by galore arsenic an bonzer motion of change.

Ms Falcone, the sister of the slain judge, said she was struck by "how everyone was cheering - successful the street, among the buses, radical hugging the constabulary successful their bulletproof vests. It's a triumph for Italian nine arsenic a whole".

There are different signs that alteration whitethorn beryllium afoot.

Earlier this week, precocious schoolhouse students took to the streets of the municipality chanting "Castelvetrano is ours, not yours".

An 18-year-old told Italian paper La Repubblica: "I shivered with emotion erstwhile I saw radical applauding the police. This crowded quadrate is impervious that this municipality doesn't privation to beryllium labelled by the Mafia".

Another pupil said: "I felt arrogant erstwhile I heard helium had been caught."

Older generations whitethorn clasp antithetic views. Mr Filipponi said that successful Sicily determination were 60-year-olds who had lived done the murders of the 1990s, and yet they defended Messina Denaro - and astir denied determination was a problem.

Mr Filipponi was referring to a bid of interviews with aged Castelvetrano residents aired by Italian TV earlier successful the week. In one, a antheral says helium doesn't justice the actions of Messina Denaro; successful another, a nonmigratory says arresting the mobster was a mistake.

"But younger people… took to the streets to show their happiness astatine specified an important moment. This highlights the opposition betwixt antithetic generations, and that things are gradually changing," Mr Filipponi told the BBC.

At slightest symbolically, the apprehension of Messina Denaro is hugely important - adjacent "a signifier of liberation," said Mr Filipponi.

"All those radical applauding truly amusement what it represents for the past of Sicily and the country: the extremity of an era, a catharsis."