 Salvatore "Toto" Riina in 1993 | A ruthless Sicilian mob boss known as “The Beast” — who once ordered a hit on Rudy Giuliani and had a 13-year-old boy dissolved in acid — has been refused release from prison so that he can “die with dignity.” Italy’s supreme court had ruled in June that Riina, who suffers from terminal kidney cancer, heart disease and Parkinson’s disease — ought to be considered for release. |  Toto Riina escorted to his trial |
 | On July 20th the parole board in Bologna, near Parma, where the gang boss is locked up disagreed. Chief Mafia prosecutor Franco Roberti said Riina still poses a threat to society. "Riina is still the head of La Cosa Nostra” he said. For years, Riina was also known as the Sicilian Mafia’s “Boss of all Bosses.” While behind bars, he notoriously ordered the murder of the 13 year-old boy, who was strangled before his body was partially dissolved in a vat of acid in 1996. The cowardly act — one of at least 150 murders to which Riina has been linked — was in retaliation for the boy’s father having ratted out the mob boss. |  |
 | He was behind the assassinations of anti-mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino in 1992. Riina ordered the murder of then-US Attorney Rudy Giuliani in the 1980s, going so far as sending an assassin to the United States to murder the future mayor because of Giuliani’s friendship with Giovanni Falcone. Riina changed his mind at the last moment, fearing US attacks on the Sicilian mob. |
