No Italy 'baby bonus' for Mafia boss's daughter Lucia Riina Published duration 19 June 2017

image copyright Reuters image caption Lucia says she is proud to keep the Riina family name

Sicilian authorities have refused to pay Italy's "baby bonus" to the youngest daughter of jailed Mafia boss Toto Riina, 36-year-old Lucia.

A painter, Lucia lives in Corleone and gave birth earlier this month.

Salvatore "Toto" Riina, former boss of the notorious Cosa Nostra, was jailed in 1993 and now has terminal cancer.

Italy's top court ruled this month that he had a right to "die with dignity" under house arrest but there were protests and he may not be let out.

A parole board will have to decide in the northern city of Bologna, where 86-year-old Riina is in jail for his role in dozens of Cosa Nostra murders.

Two anti-Mafia judges - Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino - were killed in 1992, in Riina's "war against the state".

image copyright Reuters image caption Lucia Riina got married in 2008

Corleone was the hometown of the fictional "Godfather" in Francis Ford Coppola's blockbuster films.

Lucia and her mother are the only Riina family members still living in the town, which is run by special commissioners because the previous administration was found to have Mafia connections.

The baby bonus is an allowance paid to poor families in Italy - €160 (£140; $180) a month for those with income not exceeding €7,000 a year, and €80 a month for those earning no more than €25,000.

The Corleone authorities said Lucia had put in an incomplete claim for the bonus. Her husband Vincenzo Bellomo had submitted a new claim, but the deadline had expired.

The monthly allowance covers a baby's first three years.

image copyright Reuters image caption Toto Riina was known as the Mafia "boss of bosses"

Toto Riina has another daughter, Maria, who lives in the southern Puglia region.

His son Giovanni is doing a life sentence in jail, and his other son, Salvo, is confined by law to Padua. Salvo wrote a controversial book, called Riina Family Life.

Some Italians expressed outrage at the court ruling on Toto Riina, which could move him to house arrest, like any other terminally ill prisoner.

Salvatore Borsellino, brother of the murdered judge, said: "The court should have remembered that the person before them is the same one who blew to bits servants of the state..."