Brazil won't extradite Italian fugitive Battisti

Brazil's president decided Friday not to extradite an Italian fugitive and former leftist rebel convicted of four murders carried out in the late 1970s, despite strong words from Italy, which wants the man to pay for his alleged crimes.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on his last day in office, refused to send Cesare Battisti back to Italy, where the killings were carried out.

In a statement, the president's office cited a clause in Brazil's extradition treaty with Italy that allows the government to consider the petitioner's "personal condition." The statement didn't elaborate, but Battisti has repeatedly said he fears persecution if sent back to Italy.

Battisti could still be sent to Italy, however, given that the Brazilian Supreme Court must now rule on the legality of Silva's decision when it reconvenes in February. It is unlikely to take up the case any sooner than that. In the meantime, Battisti will remain imprisoned in the capital, Brasilia, said a court official who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not allowed to discuss the case publicly.

Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed in the late 1970s when he was a member of the far-left Armed Proletarians for Communism. In 1990, he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life in prison. Italy's high court upheld the conviction in 1993.

Battisti, who says he is innocent, lived in Mexico before moving to France in 1990 and reinventing himself as a mystery writer. He lived there for more than a decade until France changed its tacit policy of allowing Italian militants to remain in the country if they renounced their militant ways.

In 2004, Battisti fled to Brazil after France signed an extradition order that would have sent him back to Italy. He was arrested in Brazil in 2007 on an Interpol warrant.

Battisti reiterated his claim of innocence in a book published in France in 2006.

"I am guilty, as I have often said, of having participated in an armed group with a subversive aim and of having carried weapons. But I never shot anyone," he wrote in "Ma Cavale" ("My Escape").

Renata Saraiva, a Battisti attorney, said that the treaty between Brazil and Italy allows a country to deny extradition if "there are strong enough reasons to suppose that the person to be extradited will suffer persecution ... because of race, religion, sex, nationality, language, political opinions or social conditions."

Brazilian lawyers for the Italian government in the case didn't return phone calls.

Italian officials have insisted that Battisti be extradited to face punishment for his alleged crimes.

The fugitive's case has been sharply debated within Brazil.

After his 2007 arrest, the Justice Ministry's National Committee for Refugees recommended extradition, a decision that then-Brazilian Justice Minister Tarso Genro overturned last year based on Battisti's fear of persecution if he is extradited to Italy.

Genro said that Battisti's convictions in absentia were flawed, having taken place at a time when Italy was trying to show it was cracking down on terrorism.

"I would say that when Mr. Battisti was tried in Italy, the decision was probably appropriate given the historical circumstances of that country," Genro said last year. "Today, any judge would absolve Mr. Battisti for insufficient proof."

The case passed last year from Genro to the Supreme Court, which ruled that while there was no legal reason Battisti could not be extradited, the final decision rested with Silva.

The court subsequently ruled, however, that Silva's decision must be legally supported and accepted under the extradition treaty.

Silva's decision had immediate diplomatic repercussions.

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said in a statement that Italy has decided to recall its ambassador from Brazil for consultations about which legal recourse to take.

The Italian government aims "to use immediately all possibilities offered by the Brazilian judicial system" to fight Silva's decision, Frattini said, expressing the "strongest dismay and deep disappointment."

The decision "contradicts the fundamental principles of law and offends relatives and the memory of the victims of those very grave acts of violence committed by Cesare Battisti," Frattini added.

Italy will take initiatives aimed at showing the Brazilian Supreme Court the "incompatibility of the presidential decision with the previous verdict of November 2009 that denied there were the requisites to give Battisti refugee status," Frattini said.

Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa denounced what he called "this incredible decision by a government we thought was a friend."

"It's shameless."

"Don't be fooled, this is an affront, first to the victims, then to the Italian government," La Russa said in a telephone interview with Italy's Sky TG24 TV.

Maurizio Campagna, brother of a police officer for whose 1979 killing Battisti was convicted in absentia, said by telephone that Silva's decision "is a black spot for which he'll be judged badly."

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Associated Press writers Marco Sibaja in Brasilia, Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo, and Frances D'Emilio in Rome contributed to this report.