Former “boss of bosses” Toto Riina, one of the most feared Godfathers in the history of the Sicilian Mafia, died of cancer last week. Riina, who had been serving 26 life sentences is thought to have ordered more than 150 murders
Fear and terror
Nicknamed “The Beast” because of his cruelty, Salvatore “Toto” Riina led a reign of terror for decades after taking control of the island’s powerful organised crime group Cosa Nostra in the 1970s, according to AFP
The most high-profile murders he ordered were those in 1992 of two anti-mafia judges who had worked fearlessly to bring more than 300 mobsters to trial in 1987. He also famously ordered the brutal murder of a 13-year old boy who was kidnapped in a bid to stop his father from spilling Mafia secrets. The boy was strangled and his body dissolved in acid
An early start
The son of a poor farmer, he was born on November 16, 1930 in Corleone, a village near Palermo that would become synonymous with the Mafia thanks to Francis Ford Coppola’s popular Godfather film trilogy. By the time he was 19, he had killed his first victim
Don Corleone
He started off as a foot soldier to boss Luciano Leggio before moving up through the ranks, going on the run in 1969 but continuing to lead first the Corleone clan and then the entire Mafia from hiding. He would elude police efforts to snare him for almost a quarter of a century, without ever leaving Sicily, AFP adds
Riina was slapped with multiple life sentences in absentia after a fellow mobster turned state witness. The “Beast” retaliated by ordered the deaths of 11 of the turncoat’s relatives. He was eventually captured in 1993 after a tip-off from a rival