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Fugitive Caught In Brazil
Italian "militant"-turned-crime writer Cesare Battisti, who disappeared from France in 2004, has been captured in Brazil, according to reports from Brazilian police.
Battisti, a convicted murderer, had lived in France under former president Mitterand's amnesty for terrorists fleeing Italy. The centre-right French government reversed Mitterand's "sanctuary" following requests from the Italian government that Battisti be returned to face the music.
Battisti went on the run and had gone off the radar until a joint Italian-French-Brazilian operation tracked him down in Rio de Janiero, close to Copacabana Beach.
An Italian law enforcer said that Battisti managed to stay one step ahead of police by moving from safe house to safe house and changing his mobile phone regularly.
Battisti was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in 1993 Italy for his role in four murders and sixty robberies during Italy's notorious "years of lead."
He murdered three people himself, and was found guilty of complicity in the murder of a jeweller. The jeweller's son was crippled in the attack.
Battisti fled to Mexico, before ending up in France. François Mitterand in 1985 granted an amnesty to far-left terrorists from Italy who renounced their past and promised to keep out of domestic politics, and from this time Battisti made a name for himself as a popular crime novelist.
He has always refused to speak about the murders he was convicted of, and forfeited his right to appeal by refusing to return to Italy for his trial.
In 1990, a French court refused an extradition request from Italy, arguing that Battisti's trial would be based on testimony from informers. That seemed to be that for a decade, until Italy's centre-right government under Silvio Berlusconi stepped up pressure for the return of former Red Brigade terrorists. Paolo Persichetti, another terrorist who had been working as a sociology teacher in a Paris university was returned in 2002; Battisti was expected to be next, and was sent to jail awaiting extradition in 2004.
France's intellectual left was outraged by his imprisonment. Authors and media workers protested against his potential extradition, and, embarrassingly, Socialist Party leader (and domestic partner of presidential candidate Ségolène Royal) François Hollande paid a respectful visit to Battisti in the nick.
A French court caved in to pressure and ordered his release in March 2004. At the end of June 2004, another court ordered he be deported to Italy. During August of that year, however, Battisti disappeared. It was believed he was still hiding out in France.
How he made it to Brazil is anyone's guess. However, there does seem to be a "secret passage" to and from the Latin American continent for those with the right connections: A group of three IRA/Sinn Fein terrorists convicted of assisting Marxist group FARC with their bomb-building activities managed to find their way back to Ireland in 2004; Battisti seems to have taken a similar route, much in the same way Nazi fugitives found their way to Latin America after the war.
What next for Battisti? He will be held in Brasilia, pending an Italian extradiction hearing. Italians are said to be jubilant following his arrest, but his return to prison is not guaranteed: Berlusconi has been replaced by left-leaning Romano Prodi as Italian PM. Prodi has to keep an unruly coalition of left-wingers, ranging from social democrats to those who believe Battisti was probably too much of a moderate: Can he be seen to urge on the return of a killer who is doubtless a hero to some?
However, recent events in Spain might prove a better guide. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's government is falling in the polls following his dealings with terrorist group ETA. Voters perceive Zapatero to be excessively soft on the Basque group: If Prodi slows down Battisti's long-delayed return to face justice, he could risk a split in his party as well as falling polls: The vast majority of Italy's left loath the violence of Battisti's terror brigades.
