Ten former militants of extreme left-wing radical groups convicted of terrorism have lived as refugees in Gallic territory since the 1980s
The Paris Court of Appeal has ruled against the extradition to Italy of ten former members of Italian extreme left-wing radical groups, refugees in France for decades and claimed by Rome for their involvement in terrorist attacks committed in the so-called ‘years of lead’.
When justifying its unfavorable opinion, the investigating chamber relied on the European Convention on Human Rights, specifically, in articles 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and 6 (right to a fair trial) .
“I am very happy for my client. He was afraid of ending his days in prison,” Jean-Louis Chalanset, lawyer for Enzo Calvitti, a former member of the Red Brigades, told the press.
The ten terrorists – eight men and two women aged between 61 and 78 – have rebuilt their lives in France. Six of them belonged in their youth to the Red Brigades (in Italian Brigate Rosse) and four to other transalpine radical left-wing groups.
All of them are claimed by the Justice of Rome to serve sentences for terrorism as their involvement in attacks in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s has been proven.
Until last year, they felt protected by the so-called ‘Mitterrand doctrine’. Former Socialist President François Mitterrand made a verbal commitment in 1985 not to extradite former far-left terrorists to Italy, provided they had renounced violence and committed no blood crimes.
For 36 years France maintained the ‘Mitterrand doctrine’ until in April 2021 the president, Emmanuel Macron, authorized, to the general surprise, the arrest of ten former members of the Red Brigades who had been sentenced in Italy to between eleven years and life imprisonment for attacks committed between 1979 and 1982.
The decision to bury the ‘Mitterrand doctrine’ meant a shift in the position of the Elysée Palace and was interpreted as a gesture towards the then new government of Mario Draghi.
Between 1968 and 1982, Italy experienced a wave of attacks claimed by both the extreme left and the extreme right. The Red Brigades was the best known terrorist group of the latter faction. They are credited with being responsible for hundreds of assassinations, including that of the Christian Democrat leader and former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in May 1978.
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