Luigi Putrone was a Sicilian

Sicily

Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 mafioso

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

, considered to be head of a powerful Mafia clan based in Porto Empedocle

Porto Empedocle

Porto Empedocle is a town and comune in Italy on the coast of the Strait of Sicily, administratively part of the province of Agrigento. It is the namesake of Empedocles , a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of the city of Agrigentum , in his day a Greek colony in Sicily...

, in the province of Agrigento

Province of Agrigento

Agrigento is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily in Italy. It has an area of 3,042 km², and a total population of 454,370...

.

He had been convicted in absentia to life in prison in July 2001 for a number of crimes committed in the 1980s and 1990s. In April 2004 he was to 18 years in prison for extortion committed against Agrigento businessmen. He also was involved in the kidnapping and murder of the 13-year old Giuseppe Di Matteo the son of Santo Di Matteo

Santo Di Matteo

Mario Santo Di Matteo , also known as Mezzanasca, is a member of the Mafia from the town of Altofonte in the province of Palermo, Sicily....

, a collaborating state witness (pentito

Pentito

Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...

), to force him to retract his testimony. Giuseppe Di Matteo was tortured before being strangled and his body was dissolved in a barrel of acid to destroy the evidence.

On August 12, 2005, Putrone, one of the most wanted men in Italy, was arrested in Ústí nad Labem

Ústí nad Labem

Ústí nad Labem is a city of the Czech Republic, in the Ústí nad Labem Region. The city is the 7th-most populous in the country.Ústí is situated in a mountainous district at the confluence of the Bílina and the Elbe Rivers, and, besides being an active river port, is an important railway junction...

 in the Czech Republic

Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....

, some 100 kilometres north-west of Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

.

Putrone had probably been living in the Czech Republic for several years since going on the run in 1998. He appeared to be a local businessman, using a stolen Italian passport under the name Umberto Bonfiglio – a surname meaning "good son."

The Czech Republic extradited Luigi Putrone to Italy where he had been sentenced to life imprisonment

Life imprisonment

Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

for mafia conspiracy (associazione mafiosa) and murder. In September 2006, he decided to become a pentito.

External links

• Luigi Putrone su Fortezza, Teleacras Agrigento, June 8, 2007