Brazilian court refuses to extradite convicted Italian murderer

Jun 9, 2011, 4:00 GMT

Brasilia - Brazil's Supreme Court refused to extradite an Italian former left-wing militant convicted of four murders in his homeland.

The court Wednesday refused to send Cesare Battisti, 56, back to Italy and ordered his release.

The court confirmed the decision of former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who on his last day in office on December 31 refused to order Battisti's extradition, causing a diplomatic row with Italy.

The majority of judges accepted that the decision on whether to extradite Battisti was a sovereign act of the executive and Italy did not have the legal standing to challenge it.

In 2009, the same court ordered Battisti's extradition but left the final say to the president.

Battisti was a founding member of Armed Proletarians for Communism. In 1993, an Italian court convicted him of four murders committed in the 1970s and related to his political views. Battisti has denied committing the murders.

He escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while being detained for being a member of an armed group and spent time in Mexico and France. In France, he was shielded by the Mitterand Doctrine, which restricted the extradition of left-wing Italian militants to Italy, but fled again when there was a change of policy.

In 2004, he went to Brazil, where he was detained in 2007.

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