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00:00 Well, covering the story for us from Rome today is Sima Gupta, and she joins me now.
00:05 Sima, what kind of reaction has there been in Italy today to the news that the apparent head of this notorious mafia has now died?
00:15 Well, as you can imagine, it's the top story on all media.
00:21 And we've already heard from the deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini,
00:24 saying while prayer is not denied to anyone, he can't say that he's sorry for what's happened.
00:31 The mayor of Aquila, where Matteo Messino Denaro was jailed at a maximum security prison until August
00:40 when he was moved to a hospital where his situation deteriorated and where he eventually died.
00:46 The mayor of that town said that it's the end of a story of violence and blood.
00:51 And then we also heard from the mayor of Castelvetrano. Now, that's the town where he's from,
00:56 where he was born, where he's most associated with.
00:58 And the mayor of the town said that essentially you cannot forget the murders
01:04 that this man has done and the impact that he had had on his land.
01:08 But he's hoping that this is a closed chapter and that people in the town can now move on.
01:15 Now, he was really an interesting, colorful character in terms of the way he managed to escape,
01:21 capture so many times. The authorities never even had a photo of him that was recent.
01:26 And so they had to update it digitally and at many times often arrested the wrong person
01:33 in cases of mistaken identity.
01:35 But in the end, he was arrested in January this year outside a clinic in Palermo in Sicily itself.
01:42 And the authorities said that the entire of 2022, he was in a town of only about 11000 residents
01:48 that was actually very close to his mother's own home.
01:51 He only communicated using pieces of paper and writing in code to avoid being captured.
01:58 So really quite a colorful character.
02:00 He himself saying that he only got captured because of his illness.
02:04 So he allowed himself to go.
02:06 But now, of course, it's the end of his life and he will be moved eventually to Sicily for a funeral.
02:12 Sima Gupta in Rome. Thank you very much.