Brazil refuses extradition request for Italian terrorist

Bilateral tensions are high after Brazil’s Supreme Court rejected an extradition request from Italy in the case of convicted terrorist Cesare Battisti. Battisti was an active member of the leftist militant group Armed Proletarians for Communism, which planned and executed terrorist attacks in Italy during the mid-1970’s. He escaped from prison and spent several years in France, though he was he was tried, convicted of four murders, and sentenced to life in prison: all in absentia.

After a lengthy and complicated legal process during the first decade of the 21st century, France finally approved Battisti’s extradition, though the convicted terrorist murderer again eluded authorities. In 2007, Battisti successfully fled to Brazil, where he was granted political refugee status – a decision that gave rise to a great deal of bilateral tension and led Italy to open extradition proceedings against him. Those proceedings appeared to come to an impasse on Wednesday, when Brazil's Supreme Court upheld last year's decision by then-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva against extradition, and ordered Battisti to be released immediately from a prison in Brasilia.

Listen to Sean-Patrick Lovett's report: