France refuses to extradite ten former members of the Red Brigades to Italy

The victims and their relatives complained this Tuesday about “complete lack of regret» of the ten nationals wanted by Italy for their involvement in terrorist attacks from the so-called years of lead (1970-1985) attributed to far-left groups such as The Red Brigades or Continuous Struggle and whose extradition France refused.

“None of them have ever heard words of repentance, solidarity or reparation,” said Mario Calabresi, the newspaper’s former director. La Repubblica and Stamp and the son of the commissar Luigi Calabresiwho was killed in 1972 by members of Lucha Continua, according to Efe.

French judiciary closed the door permanently this Tuesday for extradition after the French Supreme Court rejected an appeal filed by the prosecution against the first decision in June 2022, which had already rejected the extradition to Italy of these eight men and two women who They live in France between 25 and 40 years.

“It was an illusion to expect something different and it no longer makes sense to see these people going to prison after a decade, but there is one annoying and hypocritical detail,” Calabresi said, noting that the French Supreme Court wrote that “Extradition would cause disproportionate damage to his right to private and family life”but does not mention “the disproportionate damage they have done by killing husbands and fathers,” according to local media.

For Alberto di Cataldothe son of a marshal who was killed by the Red Brigades in Milan in 1978, after “more than 47 years” since the attack, “must be reasoned in terms of returning some truth to the events: the real game is not extradition, but to measure whether these ten people will contribute to understanding of what happened in those years”.

it was much more difficult Robert Della Roccaone of the survivors of the Red Brigades attacks, who assured that the decision was a “shame” and called on the Italian Minister of Justice Carlo Nordi to “intervene” before “an insult to Italy and Italians”.

“And I ask France: What if the same thing happened in reverse with the Bataclan victims?he asked.

Nordio, who was a prosecutor during the “dramatic” leading years in several terrorism cases, sent his “first thought” to “all the victims of that bloody scene and their families, who have been waiting for years, together with the whole country, for the answer of the French judiciary” and assured that “takes note” of the decision.

The French Supreme Court confirmed the two main reasons given by the judges in the appeal: that many of them were convicted in absentia and if they return to Italy they would go straight to jailsince the legislation of that country does not offer the possibility of a new process and that all those in France, “have a stable family situation, have inserted themselves professionally and socially and broken with Italy”.

list of users

The list of beneficiaries of this judgment includes Luigi Bergamin, Enzo Calvitti, Giovanni Alimonti, Roberta Cappelli, Marina Petrella and Sergio Tornaghi, former members of the Red Brigades, as well as Giorgio Pietrostefani and Narciso Manenti, from Armed Nuclei.

All of them took shelter after arriving in France at the invitation Mitterand’s doctrine -named after the French president between 1981 and 1995, the socialist François Mitterrand-, which established that former far-left Italian activists can continue in their country if they renounced violent acts and had no blood offenses in their records.

His presence in France, without accounting to the judiciary for his past, has been going on for many years source of conflict between the two countries. Italy criticized the fact that people were involved in the waves of terrorist attacks in the years 1970-1980. got shelter.

Things seemed to change after current French President Emmanuel Macron decided to end that Mitterrand doctrine in 2021 and, in response to demands from Rome when Mario Draghi was head of government, activated processing of Italian extradition requests, which, however, have now unsuccessfully completed their judicial journey.