Lula sorry for granting Battisti asylum

(ANSA) - ROME, 21 AGO - Former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Friday he was sorry for granting asylum to former Italian leftist terrorist Cesare Battisti on his last day in office at the end of 2010.
    Lula apologised to Battisti's victims.
    He said Battisti "fooled us".
    Alberto Torregiani, the wheelchair bound son of a jeweler killed by Battisti's PAC group in 1979, said Lula's apology was "tardy and useless".
    Battisti, 65, is serving life at Oristano jail in Sardinia for four murders committed in the 1970s 'Years of Lead'.
    He has been in prison in Italy since January 2019 after being extradited from Brazil, where he fled after becoming a successful crime writer in France.
    Battisti, from Sermoneta near Rome, fled France after the end of the Mitterrand Doctrine on sheltering leftist militants from Italy.
    In May a Cagliari surveillance court rejected Battisti's bid to be released from prison to house arrest due to COVID-19 risks.
    Justice Minister Alfonso Bonafede has come under fire after hundreds of ailing high-security mafiosi were released due to COVID concerns.
    Bonafede issued a decree to bring them back to prison. (ANSA).