(ANSA) - Rome, December 31 - A diplomatic crisis exploded between Italy and Brazil on Friday when the Brazilian government said it had denied a request to extradite former terrorist Cesare Battisti to Italy.

The announcement was widely expected as it followed reports this week that alleged fears for Battisti's life had outgoing Brazilian President Inacio Lula da Silva leaning towards refusing the request in one of his last acts on his final day in office.

''I express deep bitterness and regret about President Lula's decision to deny the extradition of multiple-murderer Cesare Battisti,'' said Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi in a statement.

''This decision is against the most elementary sense of justice.

''I consider the case anything but closed. Italy will not give up and it will enforce the respect of its rights at all forums''.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said he was sending a message to Brazilian president-elect Dilma Rousseff, who will replace Lula on New Year's Day, asking her to reverse the decision.

He also said he was recalling Italy's ambassador to Brazil to Rome for consultations on legal measures to have the refusal overturned. Battisti, a 56-year-old fugitive who was part of a leftist militant group in the 1970s, when Italy endured its 'Years of Lead' of political violence, has been convicted of four murders in his homeland.

He has petitioned for political asylum in Brazil, saying his life would be in danger if he were forced to return to Italy.

Friday's announcement is not the end of the affair as Battisti will have to stay in jail in Brazil at least until February and the case looks likely to return to the country's supreme court, which ruled in favour of extradition last year.

Frattini said the claim that Battisti's personal safety would be at risk in Italy made the decision ''so much more incomprehensible and unacceptable to the Italian public''. Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said the decision was not an affront to Italy as ''particular situations can create risks for a person despite the democratic character of the two states''.

He expressed ''amazement'' at the Italian reaction and described as ''impertinent'' a statement by Berlusconi's office released Thursday saying failure to extradite Battisti would be ''unacceptable''.

Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa, one of several government members who warned serious diplomatic consequences would follow if Battisti were not turned over, was indignant.

''The worse possible forecast has come true,'' La Russa told ANSA.

''Nothing will be left untried, at the judicial level or via any other legal means, to have overturned this unjust and seriously offensive decision, which fortunately is not final.

''It is offensive above all to the memory of the people murdered and the relatives of the people who lost their lives because of the killer Battisti''. Italian opposition parties also blasted the decision.

''It's mortifying that Brazil considers the right to asylum a pretext to give a killer impunity,'' said Antonio Di Pietro, a former magistrate and leader of the Italy of Values centre-left party.

''Let's hope this is not the end of the story. It's an ugly page (of history) that we would have hoped never to read'' Roberta Angelilli, vice president of the European Parliament and a member of Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, stressed the extradition was a ''legitimate request made to the Brazilian government not only by Italian institutions but also by European Union ones''.

Angelilli pointed out that the European Parliament passed a resolution in February 2009 backing the Italiian request.

Battisti was arrested in Brazil in April 2007, some five years after he had fled to that country to avoid extradition to Italy from France, where he had lived for 15 years and become a successful writer of crime novels.

In January 2009 the Brazilian justice ministry granted Battisti political asylum on the grounds that he would face ''political persecution'' in Italy.

The ruling outraged the Italian government who demanded that it be taken to the Brazilian supreme court, which in November 2009 reversed the earlier decision and turned down Battisti's request for asylum.

However, the court added that the Brazilian constitution gives the president personal powers to deny the extradition if he chose to.