Extradition denied

The French sentence against the Italian terrorists harms the reasons of the law

A shameful and indecent sentence has passed from Paris to Italy in recent days. It was an unjustifiable slap in the face of Italy and the reasons for the law. On 28 March 2023, the ruling of the French court of cassation was filed which confirmed the decision of the Chambre de l'Instruction of the Paris appeal court (adopted in 2020) not to grant extradition to Italy for ten terrorists, fugitives in France, convicted of very serious acts of blood committed during the so-called "years of lead". A long fugitive, aimed at evading Italian justice, proved to pay off.

The French Court of Cassation, in fact, has endorsed a decision which, in fact, guarantees total impunity to a large group of murderers, ignoring the most elementary requirements of the functioning of a judicial system and, above all, the sacrosanct reasons of the victims and of their families. The subjects in question are eight men and two women - Giorgio Pietrostefani (one of the instigators of the murder of Commissioner Luigi Calabresi), the former Red Brigade members Giovanni Alimonti, Enzo Calvitti, Roberta Cappelli, Marina Petrella, Sergio Tornaghi and Maurizio Di Marzio, Luigi Bergamin (ideologist of the armed proletarians for communism), Narciso Manenti (of the armed nuclei for territorial counterpower) and Raffaele Ventura (of the combatant communist formations). All ten were convicted in Italy with sentences never carried out or only partially served, thanks to the application of the so-called infamous "Mitterand doctrine". The then French president had offered refuge and protection to the red terrorists in exchange for a generic promise to leave the armed struggle.

One of the most unpleasant aspects of the story lies in the fact that France considered those trials "political", and the sentences the result of a justice exercised with exceptional instruments, outside the judicial rules of an ordinary fair trial. In reality, it has always been a question of trials that fully corresponded to the canons of the most rigorous, impartial and correct justice, with defendants responsible for particularly serious facts placed in a position to enjoy all the rights to an adequate defense. As regards the trials in absentia, it should be remembered that the defendants - made fully aware of the trials against them - had voluntarily evaded justice.

In recent years we had witnessed another incredible story: the scandalous cover-ups which another multi-assassin terrorist, Cesare Battisti, convicted of four murders, had been able to enjoy - first in France, for many years, and then in Brazil. The President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano had expressed "astonishment and deep regret at the decision of the Brazilian justice minister to grant the status of political refugee to the terrorist Cesare Battisti". Battisti, like the ten referred to in the latest French decision, must be considered a terrorist convicted after a regular trial, and not a legitimate fighter in a civil war, victim of a summary trial, as claimed by his champions and defenders. The aftermath of the story of the asylum offered by France to the murderous terrorists has come down to the present day. In April 2021, following an Italian request, seven of the ten fugitives were arrested, while two others later turned themselves in and the last was arrested a few hours later.

The Italian government, the day after the arrest of the convicts in France, had sent, on 20 January 2020, the request for extradition to allow the execution of the sentence. This operation had revived some hope, fueled by an agreement between the French president Emmanuel Macron and the Italian prime minister Mario Draghi. Meanwhile, however, the surreal French justice followed other paths, frustrating the attempts to finally give an answer to the question of justice that came from Rome.

The French court of cassation, in rejecting the appeal of the prosecutor, who had challenged the provision of the court of appeal, justified the refusal by arguing that the surrender would have entailed a disproportionate infringement of the right to respect for private and family life guaranteed by article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (signed in Rome on 4 November 1950), because the convicts had been present for many years on French territory and had "broken all ties with Italy".

The argument is unacceptable. As commented by Mario Calabresi, son of the murdered commissioner, there is "an annoying and hypocritical detail: the cassation writes that refugees in France have built a stable family situation and therefore extradition would have caused disproportionate damage to their right to private and family life. But think of the disproportionate damage they have done by killing husbands and fathers of families». None of the murderous terrorists has ever expressed repentance. "On their part there has never been a word of repentance, solidarity or reparation". In 1972, the widow of Commissioner Calabresi, Gemma, found herself a widow at the age of 25 with three children. Where is the "right to private and family life" found? The shameful French sentence recognizes it to the murderous terrorists but not to their victims.

Edoardo Greppi

NP Maggio 2023

The French Supreme Court writes that refugees in France have built a stable family situation and therefore extradition would have caused disproportionate damage to their right to private and family life. But think of the disproportionate damage they have done by killing husbands and fathers of families

(Mario Calabresi)