{"id":117706,"date":"2026-03-03T17:09:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T17:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=117706"},"modified":"2026-03-03T17:09:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T17:09:15","slug":"mafia-boss-behind-notorious-murders-in-italy-dies-behind-bars-in-milan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=117706","title":{"rendered":"Mafia boss behind notorious murders in Italy dies behind bars in Milan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>1 Minute, 41 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
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One of Italy\u2019s most notorious and ruthless Mafia bosses, Benedetto Santapaola, believed to have masterminded the murder of one of Italy\u2019s most famous anti-mafia prosecutors in 1992, has died in prison aged 87.<\/p>\n

\u201cNitto\u201d Santapaola was caught after years on the run in 1993, and spent more than 30 years behind bars for instigating a series of killings and other attacks.<\/p>\n

Known as\u00a0il cacciatore\u00a0(the hunter), he rose to the top ranks of Sicily\u2019s Mafia in the city of Catania from the 1970s.<\/p>\n

He was convicted of the 1984 murder of journalist Pippo Fava as well as a car bombing that killed judge Giovanni Falcone, in one of the most brutal attacks on the judiciary in Italy\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

Falcone was blown up near Palermo in May 1992 in an an attack that also killed his wife and three police officers, in what became known as the Capaci massacre.<\/p>\n

Weeks later anti-mafia judge Paolo Borsellino was also murdered in a car bombing in which his bodyguards were killed.<\/p>\n

Nitto Santapaola was detained in a Sicilian farmhouse the following year.<\/p>\n

In 2006, he was jailed for life for involvement in both attacks.<\/p>\n

\"Mafia<\/figure>\n

He was earlier convicted of involvement in the killing of fellow Catania mobster Alfio Ferlito and three police officers as Ferlito was being transferred to prison in 1982.<\/p>\n

Santapaola was one of a number of Sicilian mobsters who were prosecuted for the two murders, and despite several trials, it was never clear\u00a0who gave the order for the car bombings.<\/p>\n

He was imprisoned amid tough security, under the so-called 41bis regime, an article of the Italian criminal code introduced after the two judges were killed.<\/p>\n

The measures were originally meant to cut off mafia bosses from the outside world and other inmates, and to prevent them from ordering criminal acts from behind bars.<\/p>\n

Santapaola died in the prison medicine department of the San Paolo hospital in Milan, after being transferred from the city\u2019s Opera prison due to declining health.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One of Italy’s most notorious and ruthless Mafia bosses, Benedetto Santapaola, believed to have masterminded the murder of one of Italy’s most famous anti-mafia prosecutors in 1992, has died in prison aged 87.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1910,4308,17810,17811,117,17812,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","category-italy","category-mafia-boss","category-milan","category-news","category-notorious","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=117706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/117707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=117706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=117706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=117706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}