The convicted belonged to clans in Messina Denaro’s refuge of Campobello di Mazara, and two other nearby towns, Marsala e Mazara del Vallo.

In September, Messina Denaro died in a hospital in L’Aquila aged 62 after a battle with cancer.

The last godfather of the Sicilian mafia’s long spell on the run ended when he was caught in a Palermo cancer clinic on January 16.

Messina Denaro had been convicted for his involvement in dozens of murders, including the 1992 Cosa Nostra bombings that killed anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.

In addition to the Falcone and Borsellino assassinations, he was convicted of the killing of Giuseppe Di Matteo, the 12-year-old son of a mobster-turned-State witness who was strangled and dissolved in acid in 1996.

He was also convicted for bombings at art and religious sites in Milan, Florence and Rome that killed 10 people and hurt 40 more in 1993.

AAP