Italy recalls envoy to Brazil in extradition row

Tue Jan 27, 2009 8:41am EST

(Adds minister's comment, soccer threat)

ROME, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Italy is recalling its ambassador to Brazil in an escalating row over Brazil's refusal last week to extradite a man wanted for deadly leftist guerrilla attacks in the 1970s, the Italian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

Rome said it was responding to a decision made by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva last week granting Cesare Battisti the status of political refugee.

"We hold that Battisti is a terrorist who does not at all deserve refugee status," said Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

Some politicians said the diplomatic protest was too timid and called for tougher measures such as cancelling a soccer match against Brazil scheduled for Feb. 10 in London.

The case has embroiled French first lady Carla Bruni, who was accused by an Italian victims' association of somehow influencing the decision during a visit to Brazil in December.

The Italian-born wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy went on Italian television on Sunday to deny this. Last year Bruni was criticised in Italy for supporting an Italian guerrilla in exile in France, whose extradition to Italy was rejected by Paris.

Battisti, 54, escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 and lived in France for years, but fled when Paris approved his extradition in 2006 and was arrested on the run in Brazil.

He risks life in prison in Italy on four murder charges dating from the 1970s, a violent period known as the "Years of Lead" when he belonged to a guerrilla group called "Armed Proletarians for Communism". (Additional reporting by Massimiliano DiGiorgio; writing by Stephen Brown)



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