Italy yesterday threatened to take Brazil to the International Court of Justice in an angry diplomatic row following the release of former far-left militant Cesare Battisti from a Brazilian prison.
Condemnation of the ruling of Brazil’s Supreme Court that set Mr Battisti free earlier yesterday was fierce across Italy, where the 56-year-old has been sentenced to life in prison for involvement in four murders in the 1970s.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi expressed “great regret” and Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Rome “plans immediately to activate every possible judicial mechanism” including the international court in The Hague.
“What are we going to do, wage war on Brazil?” asked Mr Berlusconi, adding: “We are going to go to The Hague, we have no other option.”
The United Nations court settles legal disputes between countries.
Rosy Bindi, president of the main centre-left opposition Democratic Party, also slammed the ruling as “a grave offence to Italy.” She said the decision was due to the “weakness and loss of credibility” of Mr Berlusconi’s government.
Mr Battisti’s release is “a moral slap in the face,” said Maurizio Campagna, whose policeman brother Andrea was one of the four murders for which Mr Battisti was convicted. The former militant has always protested his innocence.
Mr Campagna said the decision by the Brazilian court was “political”.
A member of the radical Armed Proletarians for Communism (PAC) group, Mr Battisti became an international fugitive after escaping from an Italian jail in 1981 and spent decades evading justice, living in Mexico, France and Brazil.
He was convicted in his absence by an Italian court in 1993.
“Knowing Battisti is free is a blow to the stomach. It means that a criminal can do anything he wants,” said Alberto Torregiani, who was paralysed in a PAC attack planned by Mr Battisti on his father’s jewellery shop in 1979.Pierluigi Torregiani was killed during the shoot-out and his son Alberto, aged 15 at the time, was shot in the spine and has been confined to a wheelchair ever since.
“If he is innocent, as he has claimed several times, Cesare Battisti should give magistrates proof of his innocence,” he said in a radio interview.
Mr Battisti has also been convicted for murdering a prison guard and a police investigator, as well as being an accomplice in the murder of a butcher who had tried to resist a robbery on his shop by militants.
Mr Battisti was granted political refugee status by Brazil in January 2009, in a move that effectively halted extradition proceedings against him.
Meanwhile, the decision by Brazil’s Supreme Court not to extradite Italian ex-militant Cesare Battisti is “not a matter for debate”, a spokeswoman for Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, said yesterday.
“The President was informed about the decision taken by the Supreme Federal Tribunal and about the statements by senior Italian officials, and her only comment is that a decision by the SFT must be abided by – it’s not a matter for debate,” the aide said, amid calls from Rome that the government intercede in the case.