A dangerous Cosa Nostra boss was shot and killed on Monday as he tried to escape from his country hideout after it was surrounded by police.
A fugitive for the past 13 years, 43-year-old Daniele Emmanuello was on Italy's most wanted list for racketeering, murder, extortion, drug trafficking and other crimes.
Police located Emmanuello in a farmhouse near the town of Villarosa, outside the central Sicilian city of Enna, and moved in to arrest him in a pre-dawn raid, taking advantage of heavy fog.
Once the farmhouse was surrounded, police fired shots in the air and ordered those inside to surrender.
Emmanuello, unarmed and dressed in his pyjamas, tried to escape through a window but was shot in the head by what police said was a stray bullet.
According to police, only seven shots were fired during the operation and all were in the air.
Police later arrested the owner of the farmhouse, Roberto La Paglia, for aiding a fugitive.
The Cosa Nostra boss had his base of operations in the southern coastal town of Gela and on learning of his death the town's mayor, Giuseppe Crocetta, said: ''Now he will have to answer to God but I would have preferred that he had answered to his crime before a court of men''.
Crocetta defined Emmanuello as ''the second most dangerous fugitive in Sicily'' and added ''now in Gela we can say the mafia is gone. His gang has been defeated by the police and the courts''.
According to the mayor, the Cosa Nostra boss was ''responsible for destroying Gela's economy and development''.
