(ANSA) - Rome, December 31 - The decision by outgoing Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva not to extradite Italian former terrorist Cesare Battisti sparked outrage among the families of his four victims Friday.

Alberto Torregiani, son of a Milanese jeweler, Pierluigi Torregiani, gunned down by Battisti's leftist militant group in 1979, said: "those politicians and judges should be hauled onto a plane and brought to Italy to understand the nonsense they have said".

Torregiani, left wheelchair-bound by the attack at the age of 13, said he was "angry and upset" at the news and reiterated he would try to organise street protests with the other relatives.

Alessandro Santoro, the son of a prison guard, Antonio Santoro, shot dead in Udine in 1978, said he was "very bitter for us and all the other families who have suffered for so long only to see ourselves humiliated yet again".

The relatives of the other two victims in 1978 and 1979, Milan security police officer Andrea Campagna and Mestre butcher Lino Sabbadin, also expressed their unhappiness with Lula's decision.

Sabbadin's son Adriano branded Lula "an accomplice" of Battisti's.