Family will have to pay million-dollar debt for mobster's prison costs

Family members of former Sicilian mafia boss Totò Riina will have to pay R$8,5 million for the time he was imprisoned before his death in 2017

The Italian State has notified the family of former Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore “Totò” Riina, who died on November 17, 2017, at the age of 87, about a debt of 2 million euros (around R$8,5 million) relating to the period the criminal spent in prison.

Riina was detained in solitary confinement for 24 years, from 1993 until his death, and now the Ministry of Justice is demanding reimbursement for the expenses incurred to keep the mobster in prison.

The notification was sent to the family of the former boss, who lives in Corleone, by the municipality responsible for collecting taxes in Sicily.

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The lawyer for Riina's heirs, Luca Cianferoni, however, promises to appeal. “It’s a joke, because the law expressly excludes the reimbursement of prison maintenance expenses from being extended to the heirs of the convicted person,” he said.

Riina was serving 26 life sentences and faced neurological and kidney problems in his old age, but remained detained in solitary confinement despite his lawyers' appeals for a judicial pardon.

Boss of the Corleone clan

The boss commanded the famous Corleone clan between 1982 and 1993, when he was arrested, and is considered the most bloodthirsty of the Italian mafiosi, having created a period of terror in Sicily. For prosecutors and politicians, Riina was the undisputed leader of Cosa Nostra until his death.

He was serving a life sentence for dozens of murders and attacks, such as those that killed anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992.

It was his choice to launch an armed offensive against the State in the early 1990s, a period marked by recurring explosions caused by the mafia in the main Italian cities.

Riina never showed signs of repentance and, just four years ago, even in jail, he boasted about Falcone's murder and threatened to kill other magistrates.

After his arrest, the leadership of Cosa Nostra outside bars passed to Bernardo Provenzano (1933-2016), who initiated the “pacification” between the mafia factions.

By Ansa Agency