Italy Recalls Brazilian Ambassador Over Extradition (Update1)

[struggle4progress]

Source: Bloomberg

By Steve Scherer

Jan. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Italy recalled its ambassador to Brazil “for consultations” after the Brazilian government decided against extraditing Cesare Battisti, who has been convicted in Italy of involvement in four murders.

Ambassador Michele Valensise was told today to return to Rome after “the grave decision taken on the Battisti case,” according to an e-mailed statement from Foreign Minister Franco Frattini’s office. Battisti has been sentenced to serve life in prison in Italy for his role in homicides committed in 1978-1979 by a radical communist group to which he belonged.

Brazil said earlier this month it granted Battisti political asylum because he risked persecution in Italy and because of doubts about the fairness of his trials, which were carried out in Battisti’s absence ...

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aDuW3O2dRqXY&refer=latin_america

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Italy recalls Brazil envoy over fugitive's asylum
By ALESSANDRA RIZZO

... Battisti, 54, escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder, allegedly committed when he was a member of the far-left Armed Proletarians for Communism.

A court convicted him in absentia for the killings of a prison guard and a butcher.

Battisti, who says he is innocent, lived in Mexico before moving to France in 1990 and reinventing himself as a mystery writer. He later went to Brazil, where he was arrested in 2007 based on an Italian warrant.

Brazilian officials said the Jan. 13 decision to grant Battisti refugee status was based on a fear of persecution if he was sent back to Italy. Italy calls him a terrorist who does not deserve refugee status ...

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ioXwpopSmmk78CpOwxEg3Z7-AaIAD95VIHVO0

Italy recalls envoy to Brazil in extradition row
Tue Jan 27, 2009 8:41am EST

ROME, Jan 27 (Reuters) - ... Rome said it was responding to a decision made by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva last week granting Cesare Battisti the status of political refugee ...

Some politicians said the diplomatic protest was too timid and called for tougher measures such as cancelling a soccer match against Brazil scheduled for Feb. 10 in London.

The case has embroiled French first lady Carla Bruni, who was accused by an Italian victims' association of somehow influencing the decision during a visit to Brazil in December ...

Battisti ... risks life in prison in Italy on four murder charges dating from the 1970s ... when he belonged to a guerrilla group called "Armed Proletarians for Communism".

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLR319865

Italy and Brazil argue over extradition
27/01 10:45 CET

... Battisti has also written several novels, including the semi-autobiographical “The Last Bullets.”

http://www.euronews.net/en/article/27/01/2009/italy-and-brazil-argue-over-extradition/

BATTISTI: BRAZILIAN COURT SOON TO DECIDE ON EXTRADITION

(AGI) - Rio de Janeiro, Jan. 27 - The Supreme Federal Court of Brazil (Stf) will this week take a decision on the request made by the public prosecutor's office to close the 'Cesare Battisti case'. The Stf had asked for the opinion of Chief appeal court prosecutor Antonio Fernando de Souza regarding the member of the 'Armed proletarians for communism', sentence to four life sentences in Italy. De Souza is in favour of annulling the extradition procedure and to release Battisti who has been in prison in Brasilia since 2007, when he was arrested in Rio de Janeiro. The prosecutor wants to grant political asylum to Battisti. Souza stresses that the Supreme Court has recently confirmed the constitutionality of law 9474 from 1997 on political asylum and claimed that granting asylum is a political decision ... Now Italy's only chance to have Battisti extradited is for the Supreme Court to change the law from 1997 which was introduced to 'save' a Colombian priest, Oliverio Medida, who was accused of membership of the Farc guerrilla ... Brazil decided to grant asylum to Battisti just because of .. fear that once extradited to Italy he could be tortured and killed.

http://www.agi.it/world/news/200901270941-cro-ren0003-art.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. Interesting problem. I'm glad Brazil is taking a cautious approach and not

extraditing a leftist to a country where fascism has raised its ugly head once again. I don't know anything about Batisti at all, so can't make any kind of judgment or guess about his claim to be innocent. But I do know about COINTEL PRO, and our own government's fraudulent political prosecutions, harassment, set ups, planted evidence, lies and persecution of leftists, and our political establishment's McCarthyite tendency to scapegoat people, to assume guilt by association and to generally serve our corporate rulers and war profiteers, not justice. Italy is suffering a wild see-saw between a disorganized left and an ever returning, and increasingly bold, fascist faction, running its government. We are in much the same condition, actually--with the fascists getting away, literally, with murder--mass murder and other heinous crimes (Reagan--Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador)--and then prancing back into office to commit more and even worse crimes. We have seen a fascist junta here falsely prosecute the Governor of Alabama and others in Mississippi and put them in prison. We've seen egregious misuse of the Department of Justice for political prosecutions. We've seen them torture and indefinitely detain many innocents, and some who might be guilty of something but we don't know what, and probably never will (--the records have 'disappeared'). We've seen massive domestic spying, and probable blackmail and entrapments. We have seen what an out-of-control fascist regime can do, under coloration of the law and in a purported democracy. And we know that the fascist elite in Italy was working closely with them, for instance to forge documents about an Iraq purchase of "yellowcake" from Niger.

I don't recall who was running Italy's government back when Batisti was prosecuted (Reagan era), but I know who's running it now--and I think Brazil is right to heed the warnings that he was falsely prosecuted, and to beware of turning him over to Italian authorities.