A leading member of the former Italian terrorist organization Red Brigades has been arrested in Argentina. Leonardo Bertaluzzi was detained after Argentine authorities revoked the asylum status he had held in the country since 2004. The decision was made after the Italian government submitted a new request for Bertaluzzi to be extradited to Italy.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, from the far-right party Brothers of Italy, expressed "deep gratitude" after learning that Bertaluzzi – now in his 70s – had been arrested.
Bertaluzzi was part of the armed, Marxist-Leninist group Red Brigades – Brigate rosse – which carried out several terrorist attacks, kidnappings, and political assassinations primarily in the 1970s and late 1980s. He was a member of the so-called March 28 cell, which kidnapped a prominent shipowner. Bertaluzzi has previously been sentenced to 27 years in prison in absentia, he fled to Argentina where he was arrested in 2002, but was released.
The Red Brigades carried out several targeted attacks where judges, politicians, journalists, and business leaders were kidnapped and in some cases murdered.
