Orlando says ready to seek terrorist

(ANSA) - Rome, March 4 - Italian Justice Minister Andrea Orlando said Wednesday that his department is ready to request custody of convicted terrorist Cesare Battisti as soon as he is expelled from Brazil.
    "The (justice) ministry has activated all diplomatic channels," Orlando said in an interview with television program Porta a Porta.
    "We will evaluate the final judgment of the Brazilian authorities," added Orlando.
    On Tuesday, Brazilian media reported Battisti was to be expelled but it was not clear to where he would be sent.
    A former Italian left-wing terrorist who had been given asylum in Brazil, Battisti 60, had been sentenced to life in prison in Italy for the murder of four people in the 1970s.
    At that time, he was part of an extremist left-wing group during the so-called Years of Lead of political violence.
    He has denied the murder charges.
    "We've been informed of the decision but there isn't a date yet," Battisti's lawyer, Igor Sant'Anna Tamasauskas, was quoted as saying by the Estadao website on Tuesday.
    Battisti 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, outgoing Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva declined Rome's request to extradite Battisti in December 2010, sparking outrage in Italy.
    Battisti's time in Brazil looks set to end now though, as Brasilia Federal Judge Adverci Rates Mendes de Abreu has reportedly withdrawn his residence permit, while at the same time not overruling Lula's decision to reject Italy's extradition petition.
    Indeed, the former terrorist may be sent to Mexico or France, sources said. "It's the case of a foreign citizen whose situation is not legal who, as a convict for crimes in his country of origin, does not have the right to remain in Brazil," ruled Rates Mendes de Abreu.
    "Therefore, I cancel the act granting Cesare Battisti the right to reside in Brazil and request that the expulsion procedure be applied". Tamasauskas said Battisti will appeal. "We don't understand how the sentence can seek to modify a decision by the Constitutional Court and by the president," said Tamasauskas.