THE 20 year old son of Salvatore Riina, the Mafia's jailed "boss of bosses", has been arrested on suspicion of following his father's footsteps into the Mafia and complicity in murder.
Italian police said Mr Giovanni Riina, the eldest of four children, was arrested on Monday at the family home in the hill town of Corleone and taken to jail in the Sicilian capital, Palermo. He faces charges of Mafia style criminal association.
Judicial sources said he was also being investigated for possible complicity in the murder in 1995 of Antonio di Caro, whom the Corleonese clan had suspected of leaking information to the police. Di Caro's body was dissolved in a tub of acid, according to the testimony of Mafia informers.
The sources said magistrates suspected Mr Giovanni Riina of ordering, or at least agreeing to, the murder of di Caro, who disappeared two days before police arrested Mr Leoluca Bagarella.
Mr Bagarella, Mr Giovanni Riina's uncle, had succeeded Salvatore Riina as clan leader after the latter's capture in 1993.
The sources said Mr Giovanni Riina's arrest followed testimony from "turncoats" who have alleged that the 20 year old had been schooled in the ways of the mob by his father, whose arrest ended more than 23 years on the run.
One informer, Mr Tullio Cannella, has alleged that Giovanni was in close contact with Mr Giovanni Brusca, one of Italy's most wanted Mafia fugitives until his capture last month.
Mr Brusca has been charged with detonating a bomb that blew up Italy's star anti Mafia judge, Giovanni Falcone, in 1992.
Mr Brusca is also suspected of having personally strangled an 11 year old boy, Giuseppe di Matteo, last year and dissolving his body in a bath of acid. The child was abducted after his father, Santo, turned state's evidence in the Falcone killing.
Magistrates ordered the detention of 20 people in connection with the child's killing on Tuesday, judicial sources said.
Mr Giovanni Riina and his younger brother and two sisters grew up in secrecy during their father's life on the run.
With their mother, Antonietta, they returned to live in Corleone, a town immortalised by Hollywood's Godfather movies, on the day of Mr Salvatore Riina's arrest.