Italian ex-militant extradited and jailed after decades on run

Former communist militant Cesare Battisti, wanted in Italy for four murders in the 1970s, arrived in Rome on Monday after an international police squad tracked him down and arrested him in Bolivia.

Jailed in 1979 for belonging to an armed revolutionary group outlawed in Italy, Battisti escaped from prison two years later, and has spent nearly four decades on the run.

An Italian-flagged Falcon 900 plane carrying Battisti landed at Rome's Ciampino airport on Monday morning. Battisti, who was not wearing handcuffs, smiled grimly as he was escorted off the plane by a dozen policemen.

"I know that I'm going to prison," an apparently resigned Battisti said, according to police.

He mostly slept during the flight, as well as speaking about his life and escape from Brazil to Bolivia.

Justice Minister Alfonso Bonafede said that for security reasons Battisti would be taken to Oristano prison on the island of Sardinia instead of Rome's Rebibbia jail.

He will begin his life sentence with six months in solitary confinement.

"This is not the finish line but the starting point," Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini told journalists at Ciampino, citing the presence of "dozens" of other former militants still on the run in countries from Latin America to France.

Italy had repeatedly sought the extradition of the militant, who lived in Brazil for years under the protection of former leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, himself now in prison for corruption.

Battisti, 64, was seized late Saturday in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in an operation carried out by a joint team of Italian and Bolivian officers.

The fugitive could be seen walking casually about Santa Cruz in sunglasses and a blue T-shirt, in surveillance footage taken hours before his capture. He gave up without a struggle, according to Italian government sources.

Battisti was sentenced to life imprisonment for having killed two Italian policemen, taking part in the murder of a butcher and helping plan the slaying of a jeweller who died in a shootout that left his teenage son in a wheelchair.

"It's over, now the victims can rest in peace," said Alberto Torregiani, the son of the slain jeweller. "It should have happened years ago."