The Italian government is working
to have Cesare Battisti extradited to Italy after the former
leftist terrorist was arrested in Brazil trying to reach
Bolivia, Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano said Thursday.
"Today with Amb. Bernardini to bring Battisti back to Italy
and ensure he gets justice," Alfano said in a tweet that was
also picked up by the Italian foreign ministry's website.
"We are continuing the work started with the Brazilian
authorities".
Italy is "strongly determined" to get Battisti back to serve
two life terms for four 1970s murders, Justice Minister Andrea
Orlando said Thursday.
He said "this is a way, at least in part, to restore what has
been taken from our country and his victims' families".
Battisti's extradition from Brazil "is possible", Orlando
said.
"All the necessary steps have been taken" and more will be
taken after Battisti's arrest for trying to take money out of
Brazil to Bolivia on Wednesday, Orlando said.
Orlando noted that Italy's extradition request had been
"stalled for some time" by Brazilian authorities.
Battisti was arrested Wednesday in the city of Corumbà, on
the border between Brazil and Bolivia.
The would-be escape was launched after reports that the
Brazilian government is moving towards extraditing Battisti for
four murders committed in the 1970s 'Years of Lead'.
Battisti tried to flee Brazil in a Bolivian taxi, the police
who arrested him in Corumbà said Thursday.
Battisti spent the night in the local police station, where
he was taken after being arrested on suspicion of trying to take
undeclared money out of Brazil.
Police said the former leftist guerrilla had $5,000 and 2,000
euros on him.
Sums above 10,000 reais, or about 3,000 euros, must be
declared to the authorities to be taken out of the country,
according to Brazilian law.
Battisti has therefore been charged with tax evasion and
money laundering.
Battisti's lawyer, Igor Sant'Anna Tamasauskas, told the local
press that the reason for the ex-member of the Armed
Proletarians for Communism (PAC) group's Bolivia trip "is not
clear" but he will take "all necessary measures" to secure the
release of his client.
Battisti's arrest on Thursday spurred calls from all sides of
the political spectrum that the government should step efforts
to have him extradited from Brazil.
On September 25 Brazilian daily O Globo reported that the
Italian government has asked Brazil to review Battisti's status
of political refugee granted under the the Lula government in
2010.
O Globo said the request had been sent "in a confidential
manner".
The daily said the request has been subjected to a
preliminary technical analysis and has been endorsed by two
ministers in President Michel Temer's government.
From a legal standpoint, O Globo said, the Brazilian
government has found a precedent in a 1969 supreme court ruling.
On the basis of that ruling, the paper said, "the
administration can quash its acts" over a technicality or revoke
them "for reasons of convenience and opportunity".
Therefore, the daily said, Lula's no to extradition could be
reversed by Temer.
But the president is currently disinclined to take up the
Battisti case, O Globo said.
Justice Minister Andrea Orlando has said Italy wants the
former terrorist back to serve two life terms for the four
murders committed while in the PAC.
Battisti has admitted being a PAC militant but denies
committing the murders.
Italy has the "clear political will" to bring Battisti back,
Orlando has said.
Battisti, 63, was arrested in Brazil in April 2007, some five
years after he had fled to that country with the help of false
documents to avoid extradition to Italy from France after the
end of the Mitterrand doctrine which gave sanctuary to
fugitive leftist guerrillas.
He had lived in France for 15 years and become a successful
writer of crime novels.
In January 2009 the Brazilian justice ministry granted
Battisti political asylum on the grounds that he would face
"political persecution" in Italy.
Then in one of his last acts in office, former Brazilian
president Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva declined Rome's request to
extradite Battisti in December 2010, sparking outrage in Italy.
The families of Battisti's four victims have been lobbying
hard for Italy to try to overturn Lula's ruling.
Alberto Torregiani, son of a Milanese jeweler, Pierluigi
Torregiani, gunned down by Battisti's leftist militant group in
1979, said: "those politicians and judges should be hauled onto
a plane and brought to Italy to understand the nonsense they
have said".
Torregiani, left wheelchair-bound by the attack at the age
of 13, said he was "angry and upset" at the news and reiterated
he would try to organise street protests with the other
relatives - something he has since done.
Alessandro Santoro, the son of a prison guard, Antonio
Santoro, shot dead in Udine in 1978, said he was "very bitter
for us and all the other families who have suffered for so long
only to see ourselves humiliated yet again".
The relatives of the other two victims in 1978 and 1979,
Milan security police officer Andrea Campagna and Mestre butcher
Lino Sabbadin, also expressed their unhappiness with Lula's
decision.
Sabbadin's son Adriano branded Lula "an accomplice" of
Battisti's.
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