Mafia chief 'sold by his own driver'

ROME - Salvatore 'Toto' Riina, the Mafia chief, was betrayed by his own driver, who gave the Italian police a long list of names of those who enabled the 'boss of all bosses' to escape from the law for nearly a quarter of a century, newspapers reported yesterday.

Mr Riina, aged 62, an uneducated Sicilian who turned the Mafia into a pounds 131bn a year criminal empire, is awaiting questioning on some 300 murders that marked his long reign at the head of Cosa Nostra.

The portrait that emerged of Mr Riina after his first two days in custody was that of a courtly, old-fashioned Sicilian who complained meekly about his frail health, but whose eyes were still able to instil fear. 'He looks like a peasant. He stands up whenever a magistrate or an officer enters his cell. He is deferential and silent,' said General Antonino Subranni, head of the Carabinieri unit which sprang the trap for Mr Riina on Friday.

Mr Riina is suffering from diabetes and has told his captors he has heart problems. His face is puffed. He walks with a limp, weighed down by a large paunch.

'He is obsequious - small with a face like a peasant and an anonymous bearing, but his eyes have a hypnotic, metallic stare,' said another of his interrogators, Colonel Mario Mori.

'He seemed like a Sicilian from an era that no longer exists,' said a magistrate, Guido Lo Forte.

News reports said Mr Riina, who left school when he was nine, had difficulty in signing his name when he registered as a prisoner at Rome's Rebibbia prison on Saturday. Despite his lack of schooling, Mr Riina is said to have turned the Mafia into a powerful business by launching it into drugs and forging international alliances with cartels. The turnover of organised crime in Italy is estimated at 15 per cent of gross domestic product, with the Mafia representing the lion's share.

As Mr Riina's wife, Antonietta, and the couple's four children returned to their home town of Corleone, Mrs Riina told police: 'He is not the monster you have made him out to be. Someone sold him.'