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Article: Violence, Cunning Lifted Italy's Crime King from Lowly Roots
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- April 16, 1995
CopyrightCopyright 1995 Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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ROME Salvatore Riina, the Sicilian who stands trial this month
in connection with one of Italy's most shocking postwar murders,
clawed his way to the top of the mob with a simple but bloody peasant
philosophy.
"If someone's finger hurts, it's better to cut off his arm to
be on the safe side," Riina reputedly once told his lieutenants.
Corpses litter the path that Riina trod from dirt-poor peasant
origins in the hill town of Corleone to dictatorial rule as "boss of
bosses" of Cosa Nostra, one of the world's richest and most powerful
criminal organizations.
A semiliterate who had trouble signing his name when he finally
was arrested in 1993, Riina went from cattle rustling to ...