Giuseppe Fanara, 60, who is imprisoned at Rome’s Rebibbia prison, attacked seven guards in June when they came to inspect his cell, Italian daily Il Messaggero reported.
Fanara, from Sicily’s notorious Cosa Nostra clan, was nine years into his sentence under Italy’s tough “41-bis” prison regime usually applied to mafia members.
The rules isolate mobsters entirely to prevent them from engaging in mafia activity from behind bars.
“During the altercation he [Fanara] bit off the guard’s little finger on his right hand,” the paper said.
“The finger disappeared, leading a Rome prosecutor to conclude it had been eaten.”
The prisoner then charged at the six other guards, using a broomstick as a weapon, allegedly shouting “I’ll slit your throats like pigs!”
Fanara has since been transferred to Sardinia’s high-security Sassari prison, the paper said, adding that he faced new charges, including aggravated assault and resisting arrest.
The mobster was handed a life sentence in 2009 following an anti-mafia sweep in 2006 in Sicily’s Agrigento region.
His trial and conviction, which led to three life sentences and an 18-year term, was sparked by the murder of two brothers who had bucked the mafia’s demands, and by the killing of three men in gang wars in the late 1990s.
