Italian Mafia boss Salvatore Toto Riina, who was sentenced to 26 life sentences, died in a prison hospital on the 17th. The day before, Riina had spent his 87th birthday in a coma, and Italy's justice minister, Andrea Orlando, granted Riina's family permission to visit him in his hospital room.
Rina's health continued to deteriorate as he underwent two recent surgeries for cancer. Earlier this week, Rina fell into a drug-induced coma.
Born in 1930 to a poor family in Palermo, the capital of Sicily, Riina was 19 when he was sentenced to six years in prison for killing a man in a fight. After his release, Riina became more violent and joined the notorious Sicilian mafia organization "Our Cause". He was a ruthless gangster who held power for more than 20 years and was nicknamed "The Beast" and "The Godfather of Godfathers".
In the 1990s, Italy stepped up its efforts to crack down on the mafia, arresting a number of big mafia bosses and causing the mafia to resist. Riina is in charge of the "our cause" during the power, the government full attack, in 1992 organized the assassination of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, shocked Italy. Additionally, Riina orchestrated a series of bomb attacks that killed 10 people in Rome, Milan, Florence and other major cities***.
In 1993, after 24 years on the run, Riina was arrested and later sentenced to 26 life sentences. The prison has a separate, very heavily guarded cell for Riina and restricts family visits.
Earlier this year, police learned through surveillance that Riina showed no remorse. He said he had no regrets at all and that "they will never break me, not even if they put me away for 3,000 years."
Riina married Antonietta Ninetta Bagarella, who came from a gangster family, in 1974. The couple had four children.In July, Riina's family petitioned law enforcement to move Riina from prison to house arrest, citing deteriorating health, which was denied. Two of his sons are not on the straight and narrow, having been convicted of murder and criminal underworld offenses, among other things. One of them, was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.