ROME (AFP) — Police in Sicily on Friday arrested a mafioso linked to the notorious kidnap and 1996 murder of a young boy whose body was later dissolved in acid.
Giuseppe Costa is accused of committing a number of mafia-related crimes since his release in 2007 after a decade in jail for his part in the kidnapping.
He was picked up at dawn near the village of Purgatorio, police said in a statement.
They highlighted his role supporting the jailers of Giuseppe Di Matteo, who was kidnapped aged 12 in what police said was "one of the most heinous crimes in the history of the Cosa Nostra," the Sicilian mafia group.
The boy was taken in November 1993 in a vain attempt to stop his father Santo Di Matteo from collaborating with the authorities, and held in a house in Sicily until his murder in January 1996.
The kidnap was orchestrated by mafia boss Giovanni Brusca, who had detonated the bomb that killed top judge Giovanni Falcone in 1992.
Santo di Matteo had revealed the role of 41 members of the mafia involved in the assassination — including his own in transporting the explosives.
© Agence France-Presse
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