BBC News Online: World: Europe

Italian police seize Mafia boss

Gaetano Scotto spent nine years on the run

Gaetano Scotto was detained at an address in the northern Italian town of Chiavari after detectives tapped a phone in an apartment where he was staying, police said.

He had been on the run since Paolo Borsellini and his police guards were blown up outside Mr Borsellini's mother's home in the Sicilian capital, Palermo, on 19 July, 1992.

A court convicted Scotto in his absence and sentenced him to life for the murders, although he was acquitted on appeal.

Scotto was also sentenced to 16 years in jail for drug trafficking.

In January this year, another crime lord was arrested in connection with killing Mr Borsellini and another prominent anti-Mafia prosecutor, Giovanni Falcone.

Benedetto Spera, who had been on the run for 30 years, was convicted in absentia for the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Mr Falcone, his wife and three bodyguards were killed in their car when a bomb blew up on a motorway outside Palermo

The attack, two months before Mr Borsellini's murder, caused outrage among ordinary Italians who took to the streets in protest against the Mafia.