Italy slams Lula's extradition decision

ROME, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Italy's prime minister condemned Brazil's refusal to extradite a former left-wing Italian militant sentenced in absentia for killing a man in 1979.

"I express deep bitterness and regret at the decision by (Brazilian) President Lula to refuse the extradition of Cesare Battisti, a multiple murderer, despite insistent requests and urging at all levels from Italy," Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said.

"This is a choice contrary to the most elementary sense of justice. I consider this situation is anything but closed. Italy will not give up and will make sure of its rights."

Senior Italian government ministers lined up behind their prime minister to slam Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's decision issued Friday, the final day of his presidency, before handing over to Worker's Party candidate Dilma Rousseff. She was sworn in Saturday as Brazil's first woman president.

Brazil's refusal to send Battisti, 56, to Italy is the latest twist in a nearly three decades-long running battle by Battisti to stay at least one step ahead of Italian authorities.

He fled France for Brazil in March 2007 just before his final appeal against extradition there was exhausted. He guessed correctly that the French government would agree to Italy's extradition request.

Battisti is a former member of Armed Proletarians for Communism, an Italian extremist group in the 1970s that advocated a violent overthrow of the Italian government. An Italian court sentenced him in 1981 to 12 1/2 years in prison for being an accomplice to a politically motivated killing by the APC in 1979.

But his comrades helped him escape in 1981 and he fled to Paris and then to Mexico where he began a career as a writer of political intrigue and thriller novels.

He returned to France in 1991, assured of protection under the French government's Mitterrand Doctrine, named after the French president Francois Mitterrand.

France refused to send Battisti to Italy under the doctrine. Leftist Italian activists who weren't indicted for violent crimes and had given up terrorist activity wouldn't be extradited from France.

By this time, Battisti had been sentenced again in Italy. His trial had been reopened in 1987 and he was sentenced in absentia in 1988 for killing prison guard and a state security agent. He also was convicted of being an accomplice in the killing of two other people, and -- after further lengthy legal procedural battles -- was given a life sentence in 1995.

Battisti has maintained his innocence on the murder charges because he had renounced violence by the time of the killings in 1979 but admitted to his involvement in less serious crimes.

He said he is the victim of political persecution and could be killed if he is returned to Italy.

"I am guilty, as I have often said, of having participated in an armed group with a subversive aim and of having carried weapons," Battisti said in 2006. "But I never shot anyone."

However, his protection in France was soon undermined by the French government's repeal of the Mitterrand Doctrine in 2002 and he was arrested. While waiting for the final verdict on his extradition to Italy, he fled to Brazil in March 2007.

The Italian government has been in Brazil's courts since 2007 working on his extradition. The process has been complicated by the fact that in 2009 Brazil's justice minister granted Battisti political asylum, a highly controversial decision that focused the public's attention on Brazil's asylum laws.

The Brazilian president's decision not to extradite Battisti is a major blow, but not the end, to the Italian authorities' determined effort to have him returned to Italy and a life behind bars.

Lula's decision was "seriously offensive to Italy and above all to the memory of the people who were killed and the pain of the relatives of those who lost their lives," Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said.

"They should be under no illusion that this can happen without consequences. Just the fact that Lula waited for the last hour of his term is a sign of his lack of courage. It's a disgrace. I'll never tire of saying it."