Graziano Mesina, one of Italy's most notorious mobsters, died of cancer on Saturday, April 12, at the age of 83, a day after being admitted to hospital.

"One of the most dangerous representatives of Sardinian gangsterism," the Italian newspaper Il Messagero wrote of him.

Messina had been serving a 24-year sentence for drug trafficking in a Milan prison since 2021 before being transferred to a Milan hospital, where he died.

Graziano Mesina, the second youngest of 11 children born to a Sardinian shepherd father, was known for his serial escapes and spectacular breakouts from various prisons and police stations.

Ten prison escapes

Out of 22 escape attempts from high-security prisons, Graziano Mesina succeeded in 10, the daily La Repubblica reported.

With more than 40 years spent in prison for attempted murder and kidnapping, he has shot onto the front page of Italy's newspapers when he jumps from a train during a transfer or when he disguises himself as a priest on another occasion. And in 1970, he attended a football match in Cagliari dressed as a woman.

Later, Graziano Mesina, with the status of 'penitent', played a key role in the release in Sardinia of a kidnapped child, Farouk Kassam, which led the then Italian President to pardon him.

He worked for a time as a tour guide, but in 2013 was arrested again for setting up an international drug trafficking network, leading to the pardon being revoked. | BGNES