Italian security forces have arrested a woman, Laura Bonafede, for allegedly helping Sicilian drug lord Matteo Messina Denaro, with whom she was also reportedly romantically involved, to escape from authorities and have launched searches to try to obtain more details of the network the mafia leader weaved to evade surveillance for three decades.
Bonafede, a teacher by profession, is the daughter of a historic Mafia leader, Leonardo Bonafede, and is married to another capo, Salvatore Gentile, who is serving a prison sentence for carrying out two murders under the orders of Messina Denaro, reports the RAI channel.
The authorities believe that the now arrested woman collaborated directly with Messina, who was arrested in January in a clinic where he was undergoing cancer treatment. The two appear together in images taken in a supermarket and, according to investigators, Bonafede tried to facilitate the life of the fugitive, for example by doing the shopping, to avoid detection.
The judge notes in the brief where he orders the remand, that the two maintained »a stable relationship, almost familiar», which would date back to 2007 and that was interrupted for a while a decade later, following an operation of the Police. Messina even praised in writing that Laura Bonafede’s daughter, Marina, shared »mafia values».
Messina Denaro was for decades one of the most wanted men in Italy. Sentenced »in absentia» to life imprisonment for his attacks, including the murder of two prosecutors, he remains behind bars.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
