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'Code' in Mafia boss's Bible?
07/09/2006 18:00 - (SA)
Rome - Code-breaking experts at the FBI
are helping Italian investigators to determine whether a Bible
found on the Mafia's "boss of bosses" when he was arrested in
Sicily in April hides a secret code, sources said on Thursday.
Bernardo Provenzano, the Mafia boss who spent 43 years on
the run, had underlined passages in his personal copy of the
Bible. Investigators have said these could hold the key to other
encoded messages found at his rural hideout.
"The FBI is working with the (Italian) state police to
determine whether there are any hidden messages in the Bible,"
said a US government official, who asked not to be identified.
It will be scrutinised by code experts at the FBI's cryptanalysis and racketeering records unit
in Quantico, Virginia, the official said.
Provenzano was found holed up at a farmhouse outside of his
hometown of Corleone, made famous by the Godfather movies, after
police tracked a package sent by his wife. Cosa Nostra
He was still the undisputed head of Cosa Nostra mob at the
time of his arrest at the age of 73.
In his hideout were paper notes known as "pizzini" with a
scramble of numbers which Italian police cryptologists said
referred to people. Police in Sicily made dozens of arrests
after Provenzano was caught thanks to some of the "pizzini",
which he used to communicate with followers via runners.
An Italian investigator who has worked on the Provenzano
case confirmed that the FBI's help was being sought, though it
was not clear whether the Bible has been sent to Virginia yet.
Provenzano, who was nicknamed "Binu the tractor" for the way
he would mow down enemies as a young hitman, has been accused of
complicity in dozens of Mafia murders over the more than four
decades he was on the run. Life sentence
Dubbed "the Phantom of Corleone" for evading arrest, he had
run the Mafia since the capture of former "boss of bosses" Toto
Riina in 1993. Provenzano was sentenced in absentia to life in
jail over notorious murders including the 1992 killing of top
anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
He is being held at a maximum security prison near Terni in
central Italy. Investigators speculate he could be succeeded by
Salvatore Lo Piccolo and Matteo Messina Denaro, who have both
been on the run for more than a decade.
- Reuters
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