Police investigating a murderous mafia boss have found posters of Al Pacino as the Godfather and Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker in the apartment where he is thought to have lived before his arrest.
Matteo Messina Denaro, formerly Italy’s most wanted man, was detained in the Sicilian capital Palermo on 16 January after 30 years on the run as he was going to a private hospital for cancer treatment.
Italian police also said they found a loaded Smith & Wesson .38 caliber special revolver, and a package with a further 20 rounds of the same bullets in the same apartment.
As well as the Godfather and Joker movie posters, officers’ footage showed the boss had a picture of a lion on his living room wall, while a calendar featuring a scantily-clad woman was found hanging in a small room he used as a personal gym.
Everyday items such as an ironing board and a drying rack were also found, along with perfumes and designer clothes.
The apartment where Messina Denaro was believed to be living in the months before he was detained, was in a modest building in Campobello di Mazara, a few miles away from his home town of Castelvetrano.
He was living a “regular” life there, including going to the supermarket, according to magistrates.
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Messina Denaro, 60, is being held in a high-security jail near the central Italian city of l’Aquila, where he will be under tough restrictions aimed at preventing mobsters from running criminal activities from prison.
He was sentenced in absentia in 2020 to a life term for his role in the 1992 murders of anti-mafia prosecutors Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
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He also faces a life sentence for his role in bomb attacks in Florence, Rome and Milan which killed 10 people the following year.
Messina Denaro is also accused of being solely or jointly responsible for numerous other murders in the 1990s.
