When Dutch police final week arrested a person suspected of being a fugitive Sicilian mafia boss on the request of Italian authorities, the person’s Liverpool accent will need to have been a useless present that they’d collared to the incorrect particular person.
The 54-year-old British man, recognized solely as Mark L, had traveled from Liverpool to the Netherlands on 5 September to take part within the Dutch Grand Prix, a Formula One automotive race in Zandvoort. He was having dinner along with his son. Last Wednesday at a restaurant in The Hague, when, based on a number of native information media reviews, armed cops arrested him, believing he was a mobster, Matteo Messina Denaro, who has been on Italy’s needed checklist since 1993.
Blindfolded, Mark L was then transferred to a most safety jail, the place he was stored in isolation.
The subsequent day, Leon Van Cleef, a felony protection lawyer in Amsterdam, was contacted by native cops, who mentioned a person suspected of being a mafia boss was arrested, particularly asking him to be their authorized consultant. .
A fast Internet search by Van Cleef’s aide revealed who Messina Denaro was: a Sicilian mobster recognized for killing cops and prosecutors. He can also be needed for the automotive bombings that killed dozens within the early Nineteen Nineties.
“I requested myself, ‘Why would this man ask me, and the way does he know my identify?’ Van Cleef mentioned.
Curious, Van Cleef meets the jailed man and acknowledges him – not because the mafia boss he had seen on the Internet, however as a person from Liverpool he had met about 15 years in the past when he met a good friend. Were given some garments for testing within the Netherlands.
“He’s really Liverpudlian and not a bit,” Van Cleef mentioned, referring to Mark L’s sturdy accent and deep household roots in Liverpool – not Sicily.
It was not till Saturday that Van Cleef acquired phrase from police that his consumer was to be launched, after it was decided that he was not, in actual fact, an Italian mobster.
“The man arrested at a restaurant in The Hague last Wednesday is not the person Italy is looking for,” the Public Prosecution Department mentioned in an announcement on Saturday.
According to Van Cleef, an Italian police officer had seen {a photograph} of his consumer and concluded that it was the fugitive Messina Denaro. The Italian authorities then knowledgeable the Dutch authorities, who arrested Mark L with a European arrest warrant issued by the Italian authorities.
But, he added, “there is no resemblance between a photograph of Denaro known to public sources and a recent photograph of my client.” He added: “They don’t even know if Denaro is alive or not if he has had facial surgery.”
Italian media reviews instructed that prosecutors within the northern Italian metropolis of Trento pursued the case and didn’t seek the advice of investigators within the Sicilian metropolis of Palermo, who’ve lengthy been pursuing Messina Denaro.
However, Italy’s chief anti-Mafia prosecutor, Federico Cafiero di Raho, defended the authorities in Trento, with out going into the main points of the case. “They did the right thing,” he mentioned in an announcement.
The prosecutor’s workplace in Trento didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Known because the “owner of all bosses” since his disappearance from his hometown in western Sicily in 1993, Messina Denaro’s id and whereabouts stay largely unknown. Investigators consider that he not lives in Sicily, however travels all through Europe, the place there have been repeated however unfounded sightings of the mobster.
According to Sicilian journalist Lirio Abate, who wrote a ebook about Messina Denaro final 12 months, the mafia boss is extremely revered by his associates, his enterprise companions, and even his many lovers, a lot of whom have been jailed. have been dumped and their property confiscated by the police. But didn’t betray him.
“Having been hunted for so long has fueled their myth,” Abbett mentioned.
The solely images obtainable of Messina Denaro are from a household album and had been taken within the Nineteen Nineties. But since publishing the ebook and showing within the Netflix TV collection, “World’s Most Wanted,” Abbett mentioned he is acquired tons of of unsubstantiated photographs from folks he believes to have seen Messina Denaro around the globe, together with cops. .
“Most people mean well, but it’s also difficult for investigators who have tried to track him down for decades,” Abbett mentioned. “He probably doesn’t even see people anymore. He sends letters and communicates without risk. He’s a professional at hiding.”
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
