Mafia superboss Bernardo Provenzano was tight-lipped at his first questioning session after 43 years on the run.
"He didn't say anything, apart from invoking his right to silence," Provenzano's lawyer told reporters after prosecutors left the high-security prison in central Italy where the 73-year-old boss of bosses is being held. However, the lawyer revealed that Provenzano was prepared to shake the hand of the Palermo chief prosecutor who finally nailed him.
The prosecutors did not answer questions as they emerged from the Terni superjail, where Provenzano is being held in solitary confinement.
According to the lawyer, the boss may appear May 2 on a video-link with a Palermo trial into a 1980s turf war "if he's feeling up to it".
Provenzano suffers from a number of minor ailments linked to his age and has to wear sanitary towels in the wake of prostate surgery in a French clinic two years ago. Provenzano was tracked down to a farmhouse outside Corleone ten days ago after managing to elude arrest since 1963.
Police are sifting through messages found at the hide-out and say they expect to make more arrests shortly - once the code used in many of them has been fully deciphered. Many of the notes concern public works contracts across the island.
Certain words in the Bible were associated with numbers in Provenzano's most important missives, investigators say. Forensic experts have returned to the farmhouse to use echo-sound gear to hunt for underground bunkers or secret caches.
They are also combing the farm buildings for DNA evidence of anyyone who was there before Provenzano's arrest on April 11.
Provenzano is believed to have had a close support network in Corleone, the town 40km (25 miles) south of Palermo made famous by the Godfather films. Investigators also suspect he enjoyed protection from local politicians and rogue police officers.
The boss took sole command of Cosa Nostra when co-boss Toto' Riina was arrested 13 years ago. Provenzano has been convicted in absentia of a string of murders he committed as a young hitman and more recent assassinations he approved including the 1992 bomb slayings of Italy's top anti-Mafia judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino.
