(Rome) A convict known for his serial escapes and spectacular escapes, ranked among Italy’s eight most dangerous felons, has been arrested in his home village in Sardinia, the Italian Interior Ministry has announced.
Graziano Mesina, 79, is due to serve a 24-year sentence for international drug trafficking, according to local media.
The police arrested him in a house in the mountainous village of Sardinia, Desulo where he grew up, the youngest of a family of 11 children, born to a shepherd father. He no longer respected his judicial review since last year.
With more than 40 years in prison for attempted murder and kidnappings, he hit the headlines in Italy by jumping from a train during a transfer or disguising himself as a priest on another occasion, according to media reports. In 1970, still according to the media, it was dressed as a woman that he had attended a football match of his team in Cagliari.
Later, Graziano Mesina, with the status of “repentant”, played a key role in the release of a kidnapped child, Farouk Kassam, pushing the then Italian president to grant him a pardon.
He worked for a time as a tour guide, but in 2013 he was arrested again for having created an international network of drug traffickers, resulting in the revocation of his pardon.
His lawyers told the Italian agency Ansa that he was coming out of “a difficult year” on the run, during which his sisters died of COVID-19.
Asked why he escaped last year, he told them: “I have already spent too much time in prison, over 45 years, and the thought of going back to die frightened me” .