It was 52 years ago that, Argentinian revolutionary and guerilla leader Che Guevara was killed in a school shelter in Bolivia. And today, nearly four decades after being convicted of murder and being on the run, Italian former leftist guerilla Cesare Battisti will be extradited to Italy from Bolivia, according to officials. "Cesare Battisti will be back in Italy in the coming hours on a flight from Santa Cruz to Rome," Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte tweeted after a phone call with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
Battisti, an Italian convicted of four murders in absentia, was captured by police in Santa Cruz late Saturday following an Interpol operation. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in Italy for involvement in four murders in the 1970s as a member of the far-left Armed Proletarians for Communism. After escaping from Italy in 1981, Battisti lived in Paris for a while before moving to Brazil. In Brazil, Battisti lived under the protection of former leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is now in prison for corruption. Battisti also has a five-year-old son.
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During Brazil's recent presidential campaign the far-right Bolsonaro, who took office on January 1, vowed that if elected, he would "immediately" extradite Battisti to Italy. In mid-December, Brazil's outgoing president, Michel Temer, signed an extradition order for Battisti after a Supreme Court judge ordered his arrest, but by then he had vanished again. At a press conference on Sunday, Bolivian Interior Minister Carlos Romero said Battisti had entered Bolivia illegally and had been found on the streets. He said Interpol Bolivia would hand him over in the coming hours at Santa Cruz's Viru Viru airport. Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini thanked Bolsonaro and the new Brazilian government "with all my heart for the changed political climate".
Salvini, head of the right-wing League party that partners the 5-Star Movement in Italy's ruling coalition, was one of the first top European politicians to endorse Bolsonaro. Battisti, who became a successful crime novel writer, said last year, he feared he would be tortured and killed if he were sent back to Italy. His lawyer said last month that he had filed an appeal against the Brazilian Supreme Court decision in an attempt to block extradition.
