Police arrest fugitive Italian revolutionary

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Police arrest fugitive Italian revolutionary

18 minutes ago



Cesare Battisti, a former Italian communist revolutionary who went into hiding in France two and a half years ago, was arrested in Brazil, officials said Sunday.

Battisti, 52, disappeared in August 2004 shortly before the French government signed an extradition order to return him to Italy, where he has been convicted in absentia for four murders.

A former member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism, Battisti lived in Paris from 1990 where he made his name as a crime writer.

He was arrested in a hotel in Rio de Janeiro as he was meeting a member of his support committee, who had travelled to Brazil to give him money, Le Figaro newspaper reported on its website.

Battisti's plight has been taken up by campaigners in France, who in 2004 vainly urged the government not to accede to Italy's extradition request.

In 1993 the former revolutionary was given a life sentence by an Italian court for his role in four murders committed in 1978 and 1979.

Supporters say his conviction rested on faulty evidence and that because he was tried in absentia there should be a re-trial -- which Italy refuses.

Battisti benefitted for many years from a policy instituted by socialist president Francois Mitterrand under which Italian left-wing extremists could stay in France if they abandoned their commitment to armed struggle.
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"May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't." -General George S. Patton

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