MAFIA'S `BOSS OF BOSSES' AND 23 TOP LIEUTENANTS SENTENCED By From Tribune News Services Chicago Tribune • Sep 27, 1997 at 12:00 am ROME, ITALY — A court in Sicily convicted and sentenced Salvatore Riina, the chieftain of the Sicilian Mafia, and 23 top lieutenants to life sentences Friday for their role in the killing of Giovanni Falcone, the prosecutor whose work and dramatic death in 1992 made him the hero and martyr of Italy's war against organized crime.
All but two of the 24 men sentenced Friday by the seven-judge panel are already in jail, many serving multiple sentences for other crimes.
Riina, the "boss of bosses" who was the mastermind behind the Sicilian Mafia's violent campaign against the Italian state, was arrested in 1993 and is in a maximum-security jail, serving 11 consecutive life sentences. Italy has no death penalty.
The court in Caltanisetta gave more lenient sentences to six other mafiosi--including Giovanni Brusca, a top boss arrested in the last year--who had collaborated with the state during the Falcone case, and found another nine defendants not guilty.
Of those convicted, only Bernardo Provenzano, a onetime member of the Sicilian Mafia's top council, and another mafioso, Benedetto Spera, are still at large.
Falcone's slaying was part of a campaign ordered by Riina to warn Italian authorities to cease investigations and prosecutions.
