The French Court of Cassation has confirmed France's refusal to extradite the 10 ex BRs from the years of lead to Italy
.
"The Court of Cassation - reads the device announced today in Paris on the final appeal against the refusal to extradite the 10 ex BRs to Italy - rejects the appeals presented by the Attorney General at the Paris Court of Appeal against the decisions of the Court of Appeal,
deeming that the reasons given by the judges, which derive from their sovereign appreciation, are sufficient".
The Cassation concludes that "the unfavorable opinion on the requests unfavorable to the extradition requests is, in consideration of this, definitive".
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The general prosecutor has renounced to appeal to the Cassation (ANSA)
The refusal to accept the appeal to the Court of Cassation on the extradition of 10 former Italian far-left militants, mostly former members of the Red Brigades, refugees in France after the "years of lead", was expected.
For the 10, including 8 men including
Giorgio Pietrostefani, convicted of the Calabresi murder,
and 2 women (the former Br Marina Petrella and Roberta Cappelli), the French court had already denied, on 29 June last year, the extradition requested by Italy.
The president of the Chambre de l'Instruction had motivated the refusal with respect for private and family life and with the right to a fair trial, guarantees provided for in articles 8 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, had stated the following day that "those people involved in blood crimes deserve to be judged in Italy".
As a result, the attorney general of the Paris Court of Appeal, Rémy Heitz, representing the government, had immediately lodged an appeal with the Court of Cassation,
deeming it necessary to ascertain whether the former terrorists convicted in Italy in absentia will or will not benefit from a new trial if France hands them over.
The prosecutor himself challenged the court's decision on the alleged violation of the defendants' private and family life.
"How much the French Cassation makes me enjoy...". This is the comment on Facebook by Enrico Galmozzi,
founder of the Front Line Fighting Brigades, on the decision of the Paris judges to confirm the refusal to extradite the 10 former Br of the years of lead in Italy.
Galmozzi was convicted of the murders of the lawyer Enrico Pedenovi and the policeman Giuseppe Ciotta.
CONFLICTING REACTIONS IN THE VICTIMS' RELATIVES - "What is my reaction...? They are wretches, because there is no justice like this!
. However, it is a decision that we expected from France".
Thus
Adriano Sabbadin
, son of Lino,
the butcher killed in 1997 in Veneto by Cesare Battisti's Armed Proletarians
, comments on the refusal of the French Cassation to extradite the 10 ex Br of the years of lead.
"So, the judges, tell us who are guilty? There are dead people on the conscience of these people", concludes Sabbadin.
"
By now more than 47 years have passed, the penalty itself interests me up to a certain point.
I also find what the French Cassation did right. We need to think in terms of restoring some truth about the events: the real game extradition is as much as measuring whether these ten people will make a contribution to understanding what happened in those years".
This is how
Alberto Di Cataldo,
son of Francesco, the marshal killed in Milan by the Red Brigades on 20 April 1978, comments on the sentence of the French Cassation which confirmed France's refusal to extradite the ten former Red Brigades.
ANSA Agency
From Pietrostefani to Petrella, the ten former terrorists - Chronicle
Two women.
Majority ex Br but also Lotta Continua, Pac and Fcc (ANSA)
"It was an illusion to expect something different and (personal opinion) seeing these people go to prison after decades no longer makes sense to us
. But there is an annoying and hypocritical detail: the Cassation writes that 'refugees in France have built a stable family situation for years (...) and therefore extradition would have caused disproportionate damage to their right to a private and family life'
But think of the disproportionate damage they have done by killing husbands and fathers of families.
And this is even more true because none of them has ever heard a word of repentance, solidarity or reparation. Who knows...".
So the journalist Mario Calabresi,
son of Commissioner Luigi assassinated in '72, comments the French Cassation which confirmed the refusal to extradite the ten former Br.
"It is a shame that it has no legal basis.
My association and I appeal to Minister Nordio for the Italian justice to intervene.
And I ask France: what if the same thing had happened in reverse with the victims of the Bataclan
?".
Thus
Roberto Della Rocca, one of the survivors of the attacks by the Red Brigades,
comments on the sentence of the French Cassation, which confirmed France's refusal to extradite the ten former Br. Della Rocca, who is also president
of the National Association of Victims of Terrorism
, worked for Fincantieri in 1980 when he was wounded in Genoa during an attack by the Br.
NORDIO
-
"I experienced those dramatic years firsthand as a prosecutor and today my first moved thoughts can only be addressed to all the victims
of that bloody season and their families, who have waited for years, together with the whole country, a response from the French justice.I therefore make my own the words of Mario Calabresi, son of the commissioner killed 51 years ago, in the hope that those who then did not hesitate to kill now "feel the need to come to terms with their responsibilities and have the courage to contribute to the truth". Thus the Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio in a note in which he acknowledges the decision
