Protesters staged sit-ins across Italy yesterday to protest the refusal by outgoing Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s refusal to extradite ex-militant Cesare Battisti, despite government assurances that relations with Brazil will not be affected.

Parties from across the political spectrum were behind the protests, which took place in the afternoon in Milan, Venice, Naples and Palermo as well as in front of the Brazilian Embassy, in Rome’s historic centre.

President Lula’s refusal on December 31 to extradite Mr Battisti, convicted of murder and considered a “terrorist” by Rome, sparked a wave of indignation across Italy.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government initially reacted by recalling its ambassador to Brazil for consultations and vowing to fight the decision.

But yesterday Mr Berlusconi said the affair would not affect Italy-Brazil relations.

“Brazil is a country with which we are tied by an old and firm friendship. This does not concern the relationship between the two countries but is a judicial matter,” he said.

Rome’s protest was led by Mr Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party and was followed by another sit-in in front of the Embassy, organised by the main leftist Democratic Party opposition.

Mr Battisti was a member of the Armed Proletariat for Communism (PAC), a radical and armed left-wing group that killed several people in the 1970s.

He has been found guilty of the group’s 1978-1979 murders of a prison guard, a special investigator of terrorist organisations, a butcher and a jeweller, and in 1993 was sentenced in his absence to life in prison.

Relatives of those killed by the PAC were among those who attended the sit-in in Rome.