Rome: Salvatore "Toto" Riina, the Sicilian Mafia's most powerful boss of the 20th century who was convicted of ordering dozens of murders, died of natural causes early on Friday after almost a quarter of a century in jail.

Riina, who turned 87 on Thursday, died in the prison ward of a hospital in Parma, the northern Italian city where he had been serving 26 life sentences for homicides committed between 1969 and 1992. His victims included the two magistrates who led the campaign to bring mob bosses to justice.

He had fallen into a coma after complications during surgery a few days ago, and his family had been given permission to be by his side on Thursday, the justice ministry said.

Riina, who was rife with nicknames - he was also called U Curtu, or Shorty, because of his 5-foot-2 height, and the Beast - came from Corleone, a town in the Sicilian hinterland made famous as the birthplace of the fictional character Vito Corleone in the Godfather movies. Riina oversaw a flourishing economic period for organised crime group Cosa Nostra, or "Our Thing", when it was trafficking heroin to eastern US.

But due to Riina's savagery, hundreds of mobsters broke their code of silence in the 1980s and 1990s and testified against him, allowing magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino to uncover Cosa Nostra secrets.

Riina's January 1993 arrest, after more than 20 years as a fugitive, came just months after Falcone and Borsellino were blown up on his orders, and coincided with the downfall of Italy's corrupt political system. Reuters