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Red Brigades: nine Italians threatened with extradition released under judicial supervision

2021-05-02T23:31:08.362Z


These former activists, including six former members of the Red Brigades, took refuge in France in the 1980s. Italy,


They surrendered this Thursday morning after the arrest of their comrades on Wednesday.

Nine former members of the Italian far left, convicted of terrorism in Italy and refugees since the 1980s in France, were presented Thursday to the French justice which released them under judicial supervision, pending the study of the requests extradition from Rome.

Seven of them had been arrested on Wednesday, such as the ex-brigadist Marina Petrella, 66, whose President Nicolas Sarkozy had refused in 2008 the extradition authorized by the French justice. Two others, Luigi Bergamin, a former member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism, aged 72, and Raffaele Ventura, former member of the Communist Fighting Formations, 71, presented themselves successively, Thursday morning, to the Court of Appeal of Paris, accompanied by their lawyers, according to legal sources close to the case.

A tenth Italian, also claimed by Italy, Maurizio Di Marzio, remained at large on Thursday.

The validity of the warrant issued against him by the Italian justice expires in mid-May, according to sources familiar with the matter.

These nine sixties or seventies were notified Thursday of the Italian arrest warrants by magistrates of the Paris Court of Appeal.

They refused their extradition

The general prosecutor's office of this court indicated at the end of the afternoon, in a press release, that they had all been released under strict judicial control (ban on leaving the territory, delivery of identity documents, regular check-ins) in the pending examination of the validity of extradition requests from Rome.

According to sources familiar with the matter, several of these activists were able to leave the courthouse in Paris discreetly at midday or early afternoon.

"None has consented to his extradition," said the prosecution.

A first public hearing is to be held Wednesday afternoon in front of the investigating chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal, but the procedure could take several months, at a minimum.

Read alsoWill France extradite the former Red Brigades?

These former activists, including six former members of the Red Brigades, took refuge in France in the 1980s. They rebuilt their lives there while Italy condemned them for blood crimes committed in the 1970s and 1980s, say "the years of lead".

Several deny being involved in the murders of policemen, industrialists or gendarmerie officers for which they have been convicted.

More than 30 years later, President Emmanuel Macron has, in a historic turn, decided to settle this dispute by promoting the execution of extradition requests recently renewed by Italy.

These arrests were greeted in unison by the press and the Italian authorities, but denounced in France by the lawyers of those arrested and by the League of Human Rights.

An "unspeakable betrayal of France", according to their lawyers

For the LDH, "to attack women and men who have lived in our country for more than 40 years for even older facts, judged in Italy under conditions dictated by the contingencies of the time, it is is not to do an act of justice, it is to rekindle wounds that time had begun to close ”.

Lawyers for those arrested criticized an "unspeakable betrayal of France" and "a denial of the word of state", asserting that their clients came under the commitment made in 1985 by President François Mitterrand not to extradite the former activists who have broken with their past.

For the authorities, France's decision is on the contrary strictly in line with the “Mitterrand doctrine” which excluded the perpetrators of blood crimes.

Read also Red Brigades: former Italian activists who have become undesirable in France

"No one disputes that they have rebuilt their lives, but there are rules of law that apply to everyone," retorted the lawyer for the Italian state in this case.

For Me William Jullié, "France and Italy are states governed by law, which respect international conventions".

Since 1981, only two extradition decrees of Italian far-left activists have been signed, under the presidency of Jacques Chirac: that of Paolo Persichetti, handed over to Italy in 2002, and that of Cesare Battisti in 2004, which had lived in France since 1990 but had fled before his surrender.

He was eventually extradited from Bolivia in 2019.

"I am proud to participate in this decision which, I hope, will allow Italy, after 40 years, to turn a page of its history stained with blood and tears", reacted Wednesday the Minister of Justice Eric Dupond-Moretti. Between 1969 and 1980, "362 people were killed by these terrorists and 4,490 wounded," insisted the Minister of Justice.

Source: leparis

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