Italian Far-Left Terrorist Goes on Hunger Strike over Prison Conditions

Italian former communist militant Cesare Battisti (C), wanted in Rome for four murders att
ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images
Chris Tomlinson

Far-left extremist terrorist Cesare Battisti has gone on hunger strike over prison conditions after earlier this year demanding release due to the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

Battisti, who was extradited from Brazil by President Jair Bolsonaro in 2019, made his announcement this week through his lawyer Davide Steccanella. He said: “Having exhausted all other means to assert my rights, I find myself forced to resort to total hunger strike and refusal of therapy.”

The therapy Battisti refers to is likely that for his hepatitis B, according to a report from Italian newspaper Il Giornale.

The former communist terrorist is currently serving a life sentence for four political murders. He has been kept in daytime solitary confinement at Oristano prison, a measure his lawyer has described as “inhumane”.

Steccanella has also requested that Battisti be downgraded from his current high-security classification, which is used for terrorists, and argued that Battisti had shown good conduct while in prison.

Battisti was returned to Italy last year after being on the run in South America for nearly four decades. He was convicted for four murders in 1993. While Battisti has admitted to being a member of the violent terrorist Armed Proletarians for Communism (PAC), he had previously denied involvement in the murders.

The period from the late 1960s to the late 1980s in Italy became colloquially known as the “years of lead” due to the many violent attacks, including around 428 murders, by far-left terrorist groups and far-right terrorist groups.

In recent years, Italy has seen a new surge of far-left extremist violence, particularly from Antifa anarchist groups such as the anarchist cell that took credit from the bombing of a police barracks in Rome in 2017 and later took credit for the bombing of a party office of Matteo Salvini’s League the following year.

In July, a suspected member of the Santiago Maldonado Cell of the Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI) was arrested while hiding out in France. Roberto Cropo, 34, is believed to have been directly connected to the Rome 2017 bombing.

In March of last year, Italian security services warned of the growing threat from Antifa anarchists groups and highlighted their international connections.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com

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