Ex-Mafia Boss`s Son Sent Back To Sicilian Prison

The 28-year-old son of the jailed former `boss of bosses` Salvatore `Toto` Riina went free in February 2008 after only serving 5-1/2 years.

The son of one of Italy's most infamous Mafia bosses was back in prison on Friday to serve the rest of his sentence for mob membership, after enjoying a year-long break thanks to a legal technicality, police said.

The 28-year-old son of the jailed former "boss of bosses" Salvatore "Toto" Riina went free in February 2008 after only serving 5-1/2 years of his nearly nine year sentence because his appeals process dragged on for too long.

His release outraged anti-Mafia prosecutors and Mafia victims' families and threw the spotlight on Italy's notoriously slow judicial system. It took Italy's highest court until Thursday -- 6-1/2 years after his initial arrest in June 2002 -- to deliver a definitive conviction to Giuseppe Salvatore Riina, whose father was nicknamed "The Beast" for his brutality.

Police re-arrested Riina at his home late on Thursday in the Sicilian hilltown of Corleone, made famous by "The Godfather" films. During his break from prison, Riina made national headlines for walking his sister down the aisle at her wedding at a church in Corleone in July. His father, his brother Gianni, and uncle Leoluca Bagarella could not attend the nuptials because they were all in prison.