PALERMO - Mr Pietro Algieri, one of Italy's most wanted Mafia "godfathers" and a man accused of involvement in some of Cosa Nostra's most spectacular strikes against the Italian state, was arrested yesterday near Palermo in Sicily. Paddy Agnew writes from Rome. The arrest of Mr Algieri (37) and of two other wanted mafiasi found with him in a semi deserted farmhouse near Bagheria, east of Palermo was the fruit of a painstaking tailing operation.
Mr Algieri, known as "U Signurinu" because of his alleged dandyism, is considered a heavyweight within the Cosa Nostra hierarchy, someone capable of planning, organising and then participating in the July 1992 killing of the mafia investigator, Judge Paolo Borsellino.
He is also suspected of involvement in the March 1992 killing of the MEP, Salvo Lima, a man with close political links to the seven times prime minister, Mr Giulio Andreotti, currently on trial in Palermo on Mafia related charges. Furthermore, Mr Algieri is believed to have formed part of the Mafia "Commissione" which ordered the killings of Judges Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone in the summer of 1992 as well as the instigation of a mini terrorist campaign which resulted in the deaths of five people when the Uffizi Galleries were bombed in May 1993.
Already sentenced in absentia to life for murder, Algieri was widely believed to have assumed control of Cosa Nostra, following the 1993 arrest of "Boss of Bosses" Toto Runa. He had been on the run since 1989.