Mafia boss arrested

Bernardo Provenzano, the undisputed chief of the Sicilian Mafia who had been on the run for more than four decades, was arrested yesterday while hiding in a farmhouse near Corleone in Sicily.

"Thank God. The hunt is finally over," said Palermo police chief Giuseppe Caruso after agents nabbed Italy's most wanted man, scoring the state's biggest success against the Mafia in more than 13 years.

Provenzano, known as the "Phantom of Corleone" after his native hill town, made famous by the Godfather films, has been running the Mafia since former "boss of bosses" Toto Riina was arrested in 1993.

He was arrested when some 50 policemen swooped on a farmhouse in the countryside near Corleone. Investigators said no one betrayed him but that they had stalked him for some time before moving in.

Provenzano, who put up no resistance and acknowledged his identity after first denying it, appeared surprised at having been caught, police said. He was later flown to Palermo and taken to the main police station there. Roads leading from the airport into town were closed to traffic.

An angry crowd shouted "Assassin" and "Bastard" at Provenzano as policemen wearing black balaclavas escorted him into the building.

"We are the real Sicily," chanted an angry group of youths from an anti-Mafia association.

President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi expressed his delight over the arrest to Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu.

The news bumped even national election results off the top spot on television news bulletins.

Provenzano, 73, has been wanted since 1963 and was known as Italy's "super-fugitive".

He had been sentenced in absentia to life in jail in connection with the Mafia's most notorious crimes of recent decades, including the killings in 1992 of top anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.