Italy Italy recalls Brazil ambassador after fugitive’s extradition blocked

Italy has recalled its ambassador to Brazil after the South American country’s leading court barred the extradition of an Italian fugitive who was convicted of four murders in the 1970s.

Cesare Battisti was released from a Brazilian prison following the court ruling, sparking outrage in Italy and vows to pursue him in the international court of justice.

The foreign minister, Franco Frattini, recalled ambassador Gherardo La Francesca to Rome for consultations to discuss Italy’s legal options in the light of existing bilateral agreements, a foreign ministry statement said.

Anger swept across Italy following Battisti’s release, with Friday’s newspapers carrying pictures of the former member of a militant Italian leftist group smiling in a car as he left prison.

President Giorgio Napolitano said he “deplored” the decision and backed government actions aimed at pushing Brazil to honour its agreements with Italy. The prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, said the court’s decision “wounds our sense of justice and also those who have suffered in those cases”.

A group representing victims of terror urged Italy to refuse to participate in the next World Cup in Brazil, while others called for a boycott of Brazilian products.

On Wednesday, Brazil’s supreme court upheld a December decision by the former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to grant asylum to Battisti, who claims he is innocent of the murders.

Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder, crimes allegedly committed when he was a member of Armed Proletarians for Communism. He was convicted in absentia in 1990, and sentenced to life.

The Italian government has repeatedly called for Battisti to be sent home so he can pay for his crimes, and warned that failure to do so would create tension between Italy and Brazil.

Battisti’s lawyer, Luis Roberto Barroso, said Brazil was morally obliged to turn down Italy’s request, noting that the country granted amnesty to those charged with political crimes during its military regime, which ruled from 1964 to 1985.

Over the years, Battisti has restated his claim of innocence, recently in a book called My Escape, published in France in 2006. “I am guilty, as I have often said, of having participated in an armed group with a subversive aim and of having carried weapons. But I never shot anyone,” he wrote.