Reports indicate that Messina Denaro, the boss of the Italian mafia, is currently in a coma.

According to reports from Italian media, Matteo Messina Denaro, a mafia leader who was apprehended in January following three decades of evading capture, is currently in a comatose state.

Doctors from the hospital in L’Aguila, Italy, have announced that Messina Denaro, who is suffering from colon cancer, will not be able to recover. As per his wish, the medical team has ceased life-sustaining treatments.

According to Italian media, the leader of Sicily’s Cosa Nostra mafia, who is 61 years old, had surgery on his intestines at San Salvatore hospital in L’Aguila in early August. Although the surgery went well, his health declined irreversibly due to his advanced colon cancer.

According to Italian news agency ANSA, Messina Denaro experienced significant bleeding on Friday and subsequently entered an “irreversible coma.”

30 years on the run

Since 1993, Messina Denaro has been in hiding and has been widely regarded as Italy’s most sought-after fugitive.

In January, law enforcement located him and apprehended him at a private cancer facility in Palermo, where he was receiving treatment using an alias.

Messian Denaro was sentenced to life in prison for his role in a series of grisly murders and deadly bombings in Italy. Among other crimes, he is blamed for the 1992 car bombings that killed leading anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

Apart from the assassinations, he faced allegations of participating in mafia assaults that occurred in Rome, Milan, and Florence in 1993, resulting in the deaths of a combined total of 10 individuals.

Messina Denaro was considered a close confidante of former mafia crime bosses Bernardo Provenzano and Salvatore “Toto” Riina.

dh/nm (AFP, dpa)