The Italian government's Falcon 900 aircraft carrying former leftwing terrorist Cesare Battisti landed at Rome Ciampino airport on Monday.
The 64-year-old was arrested in Bolivia at the weekend after 38-years as a fugitive of Italian justice.
He is set to serve a life sentence for four murders committed in Italy's 'years of lead' of political violence in the 1970s and 1980s. Battisti, a former member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism (PAC), had recently fled from Brazil, where he had lived openly for many years and and been granted asylum, anticipating an order for his arrest by a Brazilian judge. New Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had promised to have Battisti extradited. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial and was convicted in absentia in 1990. After initially fleeing to Mexico, he moved to France, where he became a successful writer of crime novels.
Battisti fled from France to the end of the Mitterrand doctrine which gave sanctuary to fugitive leftist guerrillas.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
