Killers gunned down a Mafia boss in Sicily on Monday as the Cosa Nostra flexed its muscles on the eve of the 25th anniversary of one of its most notorious murders. Giuseppe Dainotti, 67, was shot in the head as he cycled along a street in Palermo, almost 25 years to the day since anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone was killed in a bomb blast on a motorway on the Italian island.
Photographs of Monday's crime scene evoked decades of violence in the Sicilian capital, showing Dainotti's body covered by a sheet, only his shoes on show, and the white bicycle he was riding lying where it fell. 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.