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Italy: Convicted Mafia boss' girlfriend arrested

April 13, 2023

A woman believed to be the girlfriend of captured Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro has been arrested, according to Italian media. Messina Denaro had been on the run for 30 years when he was captured in January.

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A screengrab taken from a video shows Matteo Messina Denaro being arrested by Italian police on January 16, 2023.
Bonafede's partner, Matteo Messina Denaro, was collared earlier this year (picture here) after decades on the run Image: Carabinieri/REUTERS

Italian police have arrested the girlfriend of convicted Mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro, who had been on the run for 30 years and had been among the country's most wanted.

Laura Bonafede is married to Mafia boss Salvatore Gentile, who is serving a sentence for carrying out two murders on Messina Denaro's orders.

What we know about the arrest

Italy's Carabinieri said in a statement on Thursday that Bonafede — who is a teacher and also the daughter of another Mafia boss, Leonardo Bonafede — was arrested for aiding and abetting Messina Denaro during his three decades as a fugitive.

According to police, Bonafede was close to Messina Denaro from the first years of him being on the run from Italian justice and had recently been seeing to his daily needs, performing tasks like shopping.

Footage of Bonafede talking to Messina Denaro while in a supermarket was released two days prior to her arrest.

One of Italy's most wanted

Messina Denaro had already been sentenced in absentia to life in prison for his role in the 1992 murders of two anti-Mafia prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

The accused Mafia boss faces an additional life sentence for playing a role in bomb attacks in Rome, Florence and Milan that killed 10 people in 1993.

In the same year, he helped organize the kidnapping of 12-year-old Giuseppe Di Matteo — in an effort to stop his father from providing authorities with evidence against the Mafia.

The boy was held in captivity for two years before he was strangled to death and his body was dissolved in acid.

Messina Denaro is also accused of being partly or solely responsible for several other murders in the 1990s.

He was captured by police at a cancer clinic in Palermo where he was undergoing treatment under a false name in January.

kb/msh (dpa, EFE)

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