A judge has ordered fresh investigations into the 2004 death of a young Sicilian doctor after new evidence indicated he may have been murdered by the Mafia in order to protect then-fugitive superboss Bernardo Provenzano.
Attilio Manca's death was initially ruled a suicide but his family has always rejected this conclusion and gathered sufficient evidence to have the case reopened.
According to the new evidence, Manca, a urologist from the Sicilian town of Barcellona Pozzo di Gotti, may have been forced to help Provenzano, who had a prostate operation in a French clinic in 2003.
Manca's family believe he was 'silenced' because he was the only witness who knew about Provenzano's condition and operation outside a small circle of the don's confidants.
Backing this theory up was the fact that Manca paid an unexpected visit to Marseilles at the same time Provenzano was operated on there.
The 34-year-old urologist was found dead on the morning of February 12, 2004 at his home in Viterbo. The autopsy showed that he had died from an injection of lethal substances which he allegedly performed himself.
However, the injection was in his left arm and Manca was left-handed, which meant that had he injected himself it would have been into his right arm.
In their plea to have the case reopened, Manca's family also pointed out that in the previous investigation his phone records were never examined to verify incoming and outgoing calls before his death and when Provenzano travelled to France.
The first thing Judge Gaetano Mautone did after reopening the case was to order investigators to examine Manca's phone records.
Provenzano was arrested last April of this year when police raided his hideout at a farm near his home town of Corleone south of Palermo.
Provenzano, nicknamed Binnu (The Tractor) for his steamroller character, had been a fugitive for over 43 years. He became the undisputed 'boss of bosses' of the Sicilian Mafia after the January 1993 arrest of Salvatore (Toto') Riina, his former rival as the mob's top hitman.
Police were finally able to begin closing in on the 73-year-old superboss when they learned about his operation in Marseilles and arrested the politician responsible for obtaining the false identity papers Provenzano needed to travel to France.
The politician later turned state's witness and provided sufficient evidence to allow police to track Provenzano down.
