Convicted Italian terrorist Battisti publishes new novel

Jan 24, 2012, 16:17 GMT

Rio de Janeiro - Convicted Italian terrorist Cesare Battisti, whose extradition to Italy Brazilian authorities refused last year, is to publish a new novel.

Battisti, 57, was a founding member of Armed Proletarians for Communism. In 1993, an Italian court convicted him in absentia of four murders committed in the 1970s and related to his political views. Battisti has denied committing the murders.

The author of 14 other books, he is to take part in the World Social Forum that started Tuesday in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, but only to promote his latest novel. Published in Portuguese as Ao pe do muro (which translates as At the Foot of the Wall), the book is to be presented to the public Thursday.

'I will not take part in any demonstrations, my status does not allow me to get involved in national politics,' Battisti told reporters.

In June, Brazilian authorities granted him a resident visa that allows him to work in the South American country. Battisti stressed that he would stay clear of debate at the anti-capitalist forum created in 2001, whose 12th edition is to end Sunday.

Battisti, who settled in Brazil in 2004, wrote his latest novel in the three years 2007-10 he spent at the Papuda jail in Brasilia, awaiting a decision on Italy's request for extradition.

Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva refused extradition on his last day in office, on December 31, 2010, and the Supreme Court has since upheld his decision. Battisti was released from prison on June 8. The case raised diplomatic friction with Rome.

Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while being detained on suspicion of being a member of an armed group. He spent time in Mexico and France.

In France, he was shielded by the so-called Mitterrand Doctrine, which restricted the extradition of left-wing Italian militants to Italy, but fled again when there was a change of policy.

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