Apr 22 2007
Jail switch for Mafia boss after birthday treat
Bernardo Provenzano, the so-called godfather of godfathers, has been moved from his top security jail after warders gave him a cake for his 74th birthday.
The Mafia supremo, who was arrested last year in an isolated farmhouse after more than 40 years on the run, was secretly moved after officials decided he and the guards had become “too friendly”.
He had been in solitary confinement under the strict Rule 41 prisoner regime for Mafia bosses, which means only one hour a day of exercise and limited visits and phone calls.
An investigation was launched by the Italian prison service after a tip-off that he had been given the cake in his cell at Terni prison, north of Rome, earlier this year.
Provenzano - nicknamed “The Tractor” after running over one of his victims - had been given other concessions such as extra telephone calls and books and newspapers.
The Department of Prisons in Rome raised the matter with prison director Francesco Dell’Aria, and decided to move Provenzano as a precaution.
He was driven under police and helicopter escort 300 miles north to the maximum-security wing at Novara prison, near Turin. The measures were taken despite the insistence of prison staff that the cake was not part of any elaborate escape attempt.
A prison source said: “It was a simple cake from the canteen. There were no candles, it was just to say happy birthday. There was nothing sinister and there was no file inside.”
Since his arrest at the farmhouse near his home at Corleone in the Mafia heartland of Sicily, Provenzano has filled his days reading the Bible and studying court documents.
Apart from the cake - which prison sources said he did not eat - his only other request has been for a satellite television link so he can see Sicilian regional news.
The prison denied his request and asked if he would prefer a subscription to a Sicilian newspaper instead. Provenzano - who is thought to have made millions from extortion, gun running and contract-rigging - replied: “I haven’t got any money.”
Nick Pisa in Rome, Sunday Telegraph, Last Updated: 11:55pm BST 21/04/2007 - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/22/wmafia22.xml
Hey Bernie Pro is a smart man for a person who evaded capture for 40 years. I think he wanted to get caught. He must have gotten tired of hiding. I feel that if a person gets caught, it’s because he wanted to get caught.