 | Giuseppe Dainotti, regarded as a senior godfather in Sicily’s Cosa Nostra mafia, died May 22 after two men riding a motorbike drew up alongside him and shot him in the head. Police believe he was killed by rivals within Cosa Nostra amid reports that he had been a “dead man walking” for at least a year. It was the first killing of an alleged mafia boss in Sicily for three years. |  |
 | An aspect that transforms Dainotti’s assassination into a vendetta is the day in which it was committed: 22th May, the same day that marks 25 years since Giovanni Falcone’s death, murdered after a bomb exploded on a highway in 1992. Palermo prosecutor Francesco Lo Voi said the slaying was a warning to the state that Cosa Nostra (“Our Thing”) may have been lying low, but was far from beaten. “When some people claim the mafia no longer exists or has been destroyed, something always happens to confirm it is still there,” he said. |  |
 | The once-powerful Sicilian mafia has largely been surpassed in recent years by the ruthless ’Ndrangheta in Calabria and the Naples-based Camorra. The last high-profile murder saw a lawyer beaten to death by members of the organized crime group in 2010. |  |
