Italian police arrests detained mafia boss' sister for helping brother escape authorities

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) - Detained Sicilian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro's sister was arrested Friday for allegedly helping her brother escape authorities, media reports said Friday.

Rosalia Messina Denaro was arrested by an Italian ROS special unit on suspicion of mafia-related charges, according to the ANSA news agency.

Rosalia helped her brother for 30 years while he was on the run and she played a role in keeping a connection between the mafia boss and his men, according to Palermo Preliminary Investigations Judge (GIP).

Messina Denaro, 60, Italy's most-wanted mafia boss, was arrested Jan. 16 in Sicily after three decades on the run.

He was detained in a private clinic in Palermo. The following day he was transferred to a maximum-security prison in central L'Aquila province.

Messina Denaro had been sentenced to life in prison in absentia for his involvement in dozens of murders, including 1992 bombings that killed anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino; the killing of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 12-year-old son of a mobster-turned-state witness who was strangled and dissolved in acid in 1996 and bombings in Milan, Florence and Rome in 1993.