Italian former activist caught after almost 40 years on the run

Italian former left-wing activist Cesare Battisti was arrested in Bolivia at the weekend after almost four decades on the run, during which he wrote about his experiences in a string of acclaimed thrillers.

Battisti, 64, was sentenced in his absence to life in prison by an Italian court as he travelled from Mexico to France and Brazil, despite regular threats of extradition.

He was sentenced for his involvement in four murders in the 1970s. Battisti admits he was part of an armed revolutionary group but denied responsibility for any killings.

Rome is determined to punish one of the last figures from Italy’s “Years of Lead”, a violent decade that began in the late 1960s and included dozens of deadly attacks by hardline leftwing and right-wing groups.

Battisti was imprisoned in 1979 for belonging to an armed gang but escaped two years later, fleeing first to France and then Mexico.

After Paris pledged not to extradite Italian former activists, Battisti returned there in 1990 and began his writing career. More than a dozen of his books were published.

Three years later, a Milan court convicted him of killing two Italian police officers, taking part in the murder of a butcher, and planning an attack on a jeweller, who died in a shoot-out that left his 14-year-old son in a wheelchair.

He remained in Paris until 2004, before a change in policy forced him to flee to Brazil, where he spent four years in jail before the government decided not to extradite him to Italy.

He faces extradition again after he was caught in Santa Cruz de la Sierra.