"I never killed or wanted to kill anyone" Battisti said in an eight-page letter this week to the 11 members of Brazil's supreme court, according to the court's website.

The justices are expected to rule soon on whether Battisti, 54, will be returned to his native Italy, where he faces jail time for assassination and bank robbery committed when he was a member of the violent left-wing group, the Armed Proletariat for Communism (PAC).

"I want to tell the truth about my story... I never had the possibility to defend myself in Italy," he wrote, "I was used as a scapegoat."

Now a crime author, Battisti has admitted to being a member of the PAC, which was accused of being behind scores of bank robberies and at least four murders in the 1970s.

He was sentenced in absentia in 1988 for the murders, which took place in 1977 and 1978. He has been on the run in Mexico, France and Brazil since, but denies the murder allegations.

Brazil's supreme court still has to weigh in on whether Battisti should be extradited -- despite a decision acknowledging him as a political prisoner.

The case has prompted a diplomatic spat between Brazil and Italy -- which briefly recalled its ambassador in Brasilia.

PAC was one of a series of left-wing groups that grew in Italy in the 1970, most notably the communist Red Brigades, which kidnapped and murdered former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro.

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