Many more far-left terror fugitives will be returned to Italy following the extradition of former Marxist militant and convicted murderer Cesare Battisti earlier this year, Italy's far-right interior minister and deputy premier Matteo Salvini said on Friday.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting in Milan with Brazil's new ultranationalist president Jair Bolsonaro's son Eduardo Bolsanaro, Salvini thanked the South American country for ordering Battisti's arrest.
"The return of Cesare Battisti heralds the arrival in Italy of many more terrorists and criminals," Salvini said.
Battisti was extradited to Italy in January after living for more than a decade in Brazil, where he fled from France in 2006 when the European Court of Justice ruled he could be extradited. He had lived in France for 16 years and first fled there from Italy in 1981 after escaping from jail.
Battisti is currently serving a life sentence in Italy for four murders committed during the 1970s. He is one at least 15 far-left Italian terrorists who fled to France in the early 1980s and received protection under a policy that judged they could not be assured of a fair trial in Italy.
Salvini also said that Italy and Brazil would continue to deepen their ties.
"Economic, cultural and commercial agreements will be ever-stronger between Italy and Brazil," he said.
The populist government in Rome was looking at allowing Italian immigrants in Brazil to return to Italy, Salvini stated.
"Now that we have curbed irregular immigration, we can turn our attention to Italians abroad who want to return to the homeland," he said.