Italy's most wanted Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, who was captured in January after being on the run for 30 years, has died, Italian news agency ANSA reported in the early hours of Monday.
The 61-year-old, the convicted head of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra Mafia, was suffering from colon cancer and had been in an irreversible coma since Friday, the news agency reported. His doctors had said he would never recover.
At his own request, life-sustaining measures had been discontinued, doctors from the hospital in the central Italian city of L'Aquila said.
In early August, the Mafioso underwent intestinal surgery at San Salvatore hospital in L'Aquila. While the operation was successful, his advanced colon cancer caused an irreversible deterioration in his state of health, ANSA cited sources as saying.
Messina Denaro was captured by police in January after three decades on the run.
The Mafia boss, who had long been considered Italy's most-wanted fugitive, was captured by a specialized police unit at a cancer clinic in Palermo where he was undergoing treatment under a false name.
He was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for his role in a series of grisly murders and car 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, among others.
Messina Denaro was considered a close confidante of former Mafia crime bosses Bernardo Provenzano and Salvatore "Totò" Riina.
