Italian Mafia Boss Caught After 40 Years

PALERMO, Sicily - Italy's reputed No. 1 Mafia boss was arrested Tuesday at a farmhouse in the Sicilian countryside after frustrating investigators' efforts to catch him during more than 40 years on the run, the Interior Ministry said.Bernardo Provenzano, Italy's most wanted man, is believed to have taken over the Sicilian Mafia after the 1993 arrest of former boss Salvatore "Toto" Riina in Palermo.

"Bastard! Murderer!" a crowd shouted as black-hooded policemen took the elderly man out of a sedan and rushed him into the courtyard of a police building in Palermo. The gray-haired Provenzano, wearing a windbreaker and tinted glasses, glanced aside at one point but made no audible comment.

A Palermo police spokesman, Agent Daniele Macaluso, said Provenzano had been arrested in the morning near Corleone, the Sicilian town made famous in the "Godfather" movies. He was then driven to Palermo, 37 miles north of Corleone.

He was being questioned by anti-Mafia prosecutors in police offices, but was saying little, answering only questions about his identity, the Italian news agency ANSA reported from Palermo.

Interior Ministry Undersecretary Alfredo Mantovano described Provenzano as "the most important person from Cosa Nostra" after Riina, the so-called "boss of bosses" who was also arrested after years as a fugitive. He called the arrest "an important step forward ... for the entire nation."