TURIN, Italy, Feb. 3 (UPI) -- A Mafia boss who asked to be let out of prison because he is too sick to remain there will be examined by an Italian hospital's oncologist, court sources said.
Bernardo Provenzano, 78, of Palermo, has a "syndrome akin to Parkinson's disease" and recently suffered a restriction of blood flowing to the heart, an ischemia, the Italian news agency, ANSA reported Thursday.
Italian law allows convicts to be released to a medical facility or to house arrest if too sick to remain in prison, ANSA said.
Provenzano was captured in 2006 after 43 years on at large, and is serving a life sentence for crimes including the slayings in 1992 of two anti-Mafia heroes, ANSA reported.
Provenzano is in solitary confinement at a high security prison near Turin, ANSA said.
