Former Italian leftist Cesare Battisti has recognized in prison the murders committed during the "years of lead" for which he was sentenced to life.
Cesare Battisti, a former far-left activist sentenced to life in Italy for four murders committed in the 1970s, acknowledged for the first time his responsibility for these crimes and the mistake of armed struggle.
Confessions and excuses
"All that has been established during these sentences is true," said 64-year-old Cesare Battisti, according to the Milan prosecutor who questioned him this weekend, Alberto Nobili, quoted Monday by the Italian media. The former extreme-left activist, who fled to France for 15 years, then to Brazil, and captured in Bolivia in January, also apologized to the families of the victims and acknowledged the mistake of the armed struggle, he said. -he explains.
"The armed struggle has prevented the development of a cultural, social and political revolution that, from the events of 1968, would have been absolutely positive," he said from Sardinia prison where he is serving a prison sentence for life. Never since his conviction in absentia in 1981, Cesare Battisti had acknowledged his responsibility for these crimes, within the organization Armed Proletarians for Communism (PAC).
"We expect these pseudo left-wing intellectuals, who have pampered this murderer for years, to also apologize," Interior Minister Matteo Salvini told a news conference.
More than 25 years after his conviction
The former activist was sentenced in 1993 in absentia to life in Italy for the murder three years earlier of Antonio Santoro, a prison guard, and that in 1979 of Andrea Campagna, a police driver. He was also convicted for complicity in the 1979 murder of Pier Luigi Torregiani, a jeweler. The victim's son, 15-year-old Alberto, who was seriously injured during the attack, became a quadriplegic.
The former activist was also sentenced for complicity in the same year's murder of a butcher, Lino Sabbadin. These two traders had been chosen because they had defended themselves during an attempted robbery.
During his stay in France from 1990 to 2004, Cesare Battisti had benefited from the protection of the socialist president at the time, François Mitterrand, who had pledged to extradite no extreme left activist agreeing to give up the armed struggle . But in 2004, the government of President Jacques Chirac decided to end the "Mitterrand jurisprudence" and extradite Battisti. He had fled to Brazil under a false identity with, according to him, the help of the French secret services.