Graziano Mesina, the former 'Scarlet
Pimpernel' of Sardinian kidnapping banditry, was released from
prison to a Milan hospital with terminal cancer on Friday.
Mesina, 83, is now in San Paolo Hospital in the Lombardy capital
after spending two years in Opera Prison as part of a 30 year
sentence for drug trafficking.
Arrested 12 years ago as the alleged head of a drugs gang,
Mesina was first sentenced to 30 years in an appeals trial in
Cagliari in 2018 - a verdict the Cassation Court upheld in 2020.
After his arrest, his State pardon, granted by President
Carlo Azeglio Ciampi in 2004, was revoked in 2016.
Mesina, who is nicknamed Grazianeddu, was pardoned after almost
50 years in and out of jails but returned to drug trafficking
and attempted kidnapping in 2013.
Sardinia's most famous postwar bandit was a hero to many in
the 1960 and 1970s for his supposedly anti-capitalist
kidnappings, daring prison breaks and glamorous lifestyle on the
run.
The former iconic bandit was acquitted in October 2013 of
ordering the murder of Santino Gungui near Nuoro on Christmas
night in 1974.
Prosecutors had asked for a life penalty, arguing that
Mesina, then in jail, ordered the hit on 37-year-old Gungui for
not handing over the proceeds of arms and drugs trafficking.
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