«My name is Matteo Messina Denaro, I worked in the countryside and I was a farmer. I no longer have the residence because the Municipality canceled me. I am now a stateless person. My economic conditions? I don't miss anything. I had assets but you took them all away from me. If I still have something I won't say it, I'm not stupid».

Thus begins the unpublished interrogation of the boss Matteo Messina Denaro heard on February 21 by the investigating judge Alfredo Montalto and the prosecutor Gianluca De Leo, after his arrest in Palermo , in the context of a criminal proceeding in which the mafia boss responds to aggravated extortion to daughter of a figurehead, Giuseppina Passanante , who would have been threatened together with her husband to get back land fictitiously in their name.

In this regard, the former fugitive explained that he had only written her a letter to get back what was his.

“Does he have nicknames?” the magistrates still ask the boss. Who replies: "The various journalists attacked me as a fugitive, but I didn't have any nicknames in my family".

According to the investigators, however, Messina Denaro was called "U siccu" and "Diabolik" by his followers.

And again: Messina Denaro explains to the magistrate who asks him what his last residence was: «I lived in Campobello as a fugitive, therefore on the sly in secret. The last residence I had as a free man was in Campobello».

Messina Denaro also denied being a mafia boss and belonging to Cosa Nostra, of which – he allegedly said – “I only know from the newspapers”.

(Unioneonline/lf)

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