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Recent Appearances...

Caribbean-Latin America

Five soldiers arrested in Brazil for plotting to assassinate president

2024-11-20

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Five suspects in the attempted assassination of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin in 2022 have been detained in Brazil. This was reported by the local publication G1.

On November 19, four special forces officers and one police officer were arrested by federal police on suspicion of attempting a coup. They are also accused of plotting to assassinate President Lula da Silva weeks before his inauguration.

The documents seized by police described a plan to shoot or poison Lula da Silva and Vice President Alckmin, then install National Security Adviser Augusto Heleno and former Defense Minister Braga Netto as leaders of the country and hold new elections, Reuters reports. According to the documents, the detainees also planned to kill one of the country's Supreme Court judges with an explosive device or poison.

The men involved in the coup attempt were special forces trained and planned to use “advanced military operational techniques” in an operation called “Green-Yellow Dagger” and then create a “crisis cabinet” of ministers, the report said. Before their arrest, the suspects were in Rio de Janeiro, where they were taking part in a mission to provide security for the G20 leaders’ meeting.

As reported by the Regnum news agency, on January 9, 2023, a state of emergency was declared in Brazil due to protests against the results of the presidential elections. Protesters stormed the buildings of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the presidential residence. More than 400 people were detained for participating in anti-government protests.

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Caribbean-Latin America

Twitter In Revolt As Former Brazilian President Lula Released From Prison

2019-11-09

[SPUTNIKNEWS] Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who served as the president of Brazil between 2003-2010, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2018 for money laundering and corruption. He maintains significant support in the country and was a favoured candidate to win in the 2018 election, despite being in jail.

Brazilian Twitter erupted in response to an announcement that the former president of Brazil, Lula Da Silva, had been released from prison on Friday following an order by a federal judge.

Online users, including Lula, reacted to the news with celebration, as Brazilians await his release from prison.

Lula's lawyers requested his release following an order from the top court of Brazil, which voted to overturn a rule that a person can be imprisoned only after all appeals to the courts have been exhausted.

Despite being imprisoned during an ongoing corruption investigation, he was a favourite to win the 2018 presidential election, which saw the election of pro-US leader Jair Bolsonaro.

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Caribbean-Latin America

Bolivia delivers to Italy the communist fugitive Cesare Battisti

2019-01-15

[ELUNIVERSAL] Italian extreme leftist Cesare Battisti, captured on Saturday in Santa Cruz de La Sierra, was handed over to the Italian authorities in that eastern Bolivian city on Sunday to be transferred directly to Italia where He is convicted of homicides during violent actions in the 1970s.

Battisti, 64, was a runaway from last month when he fled Brazil, where he had initially found refuge under the government of leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva , AFP said.

"This Italian subject, will be delivered by Interpol Bolivia to Interpol Italia to be transferred on a flight sent by the authorities of Italia," Bolivian Interior Minister Carlos Romero announced at a presser earlier this year at the Interpol headquarters. in Santa Cruz, confirming an announcement from Rome.

The head of the Italian Government, Giuseppe Conte, had advanced it shortly before, after having a telephone conversation with the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro.

The plane with police and members of the secret services that the Italian Government sent on the same Sunday to go to find Battisti landed in Santa Cruz shortly after 3:00 pm local (19H00 GMT), the AFP found.

A PUZZLE FOR MORALES
A Bolivian government source had confirmed Sunday his capture by police on a street in Santa Cruz.

Battisti, 64, was nabbed
You have the right to remain silent...
on Saturday at 6:50 pm local with "alcoholic breath," said the Bolivian source close to the investigation.

The Italian was in possession of Brazilian documentation, cell phone and credit card in his name. Since then he has been detained in Interpol premises in Santa Cruz.

Throughout Sunday, the Battisti case was the subject of an intense game of political, judicial and diplomatic ping-pong between Rome, La Paz and Brasilia at the time of defining their fate.

Brazilian Institutional Security Cabinet Minister Augusto Heleno had assured hours ago that, before being sent to Italia, Battisti would make a stop in Brazil.

There, the far-right Bolsonaro government had promised to return it as a "gift" to Italia - where conservatives also rule - ending an era of affinity between leftist governments and activists responsible for acts of violence during the "years of lead "of the cold war.

"THE PICNIC IS OVER"
Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of the Brazilian head of state, tweeted on Sunday that "Brazil is no longer a land of bandidos."

"The 'little gift' is coming," he exulted. "My first thought is for the victims of this murderer ... protected by the lefts of half the planet." The picnic is over, "Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini tweeted.

"Justice will finally be done for the victims of terrorism," former Italian government chief Paolo Gentiloni reacted more soberly.

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Caribbean-Latin America

Cesare Battisti: Italian ex-militant communist arrested in Bolivia

2019-01-13

[BBC] A former communist militant who Brazil's new president had vowed to extradite has been detained in Bolivia, a Brazilian official said.

Italian Cesare Battisti is wanted for four murders in Italy during the 1970s, which he denies committing. Battisti spent years in Brazil as a refugee, backed by former left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

But far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office on 1 January, had pledged to send him back to Italy.

Filipe G. Martins, a senior aide on international affairs to President Bolsonaro, tweeted that Battisti "will be soon brought to Brazil, from where he will probably be sent to Italy to serve a life sentence".

An arrest warrant had been issued for Battisti in December, when Brazil's former President Michel Temer revoked his status as a permanent resident. The 64-year-old went on the run, and both his lawyer and the police told the BBC they had no idea of his whereabouts.

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Caribbean-Latin America

Brazil refuses to extradite Italian 'terrorist'

2011-01-01

Brazil has apparently become the fifth largest economy in the world, or something, and is feeling quite too big for its britches.

BRASILIA, Brazil - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Friday turned down an extradition demand for an Italian ex-militant, Cesare Battisti, considered a "terrorist" by Rome for murders committed in the 1970s.

Read on and you'll see that he's a terrorist without the scoff quotes...

Another of those vicious Sixty-Eighters?

The decision, announced by Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim, came on Lula's last day in office, and in the wake of warnings from Italy that it would see such a move as "unacceptable."

"The president today took the decision to not agree to the extradition of Italian citizen Cesare Battisti on the basis of a report by the attorney general," Amorim told reporters.

"This type of judgement does not constitute an affront from one country to another," he said, reading from an official statement.

Yes, it does. A very deliberate one.

Battisti, 56, has spent three decades on the run in France, Mexico and finally Brazil, where he has been in jail since 2007 pending the result of the Italian extradition request.

Lula's government last year tried to declare Battisti a refugee, prompting Rome to withdrew its ambassador in protest, but Brazil's Supreme Court overturned that designation as illegal. It said a bilateral extradition treaty should apply, but that Lula would have to make a final decision.

Battisti, who made a new career as a crime novelist while living in France, has said he is innocent of the murder charges against him, and claims he is the victim of "political" persecution in Italy.

On Thursday, Italy warned a refusal to extradite Battisti would be "absolutely incomprehensible and unacceptable."

Except, of course, that Italy can't do anything about it...

Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said he would back "boycott initiatives" against Brazil, and called a refusal by Lula "a huge wound in bilateral relations."

Brazil's biggest trading partner is now China, the U.S. having fallen to number two. No doubt they'll get their racing cars from some country other than Italy.

Italy has reacted angrily to suggestions Battisti faced persecution if extradited.

Rome considers Battisti a "terrorist" for his membership in the Armed Proletariat for Communism, a radical and armed left-wing group that killed several people in the 1970s. He was found guilty in absentia for the group's 1978-1979 murders of a prison guard, a special investigator of terrorist organizations, a butcher and a jeweler, and in 1993 was sentenced to life in prison.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has vowed to "leave no stone unturned to obtain Battisti's extradition."

Battisti's life on the run from Italian authorities has taken him across several countries and seen him start a new career as a writer. Initially jailed in Italy in 1981 on charges of belonging to an armed group, Battisti escaped that same year and fled to France then Mexico.

When France adopted a law giving refuge to repentant militants, he returned to that country and started a new career as a successful crime novelist.

Notoriety is a great help to a novelist. With it, he needn't even be able to write.

Following Italy's murder conviction against him and France's decision to no longer protect him, he fled to Brazil in 2004 with the help of sympathizers -- among them, he said, French intelligence agents. In 2007, Battisti was arrested in Rio de Janeiro and transferred to the Brasilia jail.

Lula's decision leaves a diplomatic headache for his successor, Dilma Rousseff, who takes over from Saturday. But there was little chance of her going back on Lula's decision.

A former Marxist militant who joined Lula's Workers Party, Rousseff herself spent two years being tortured in jail in the early 1970s for fighting Brazil's then military dictatorship.

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Europe

German militant freed after 24 years in jail

2007-03-25

Brigitte Mohnhaupt, a former leader of the Red Army Faction group which terrorised Germany in the 1970s, left jail Sunday after serving 24 years for a series of guerrilla murders. The plan to release the 57-year-old Mohnhaupt, who was once considered Germany's most dangerous woman, on parole has caused widespread controversy. Mohnhaupt, who was convicted for her role in nine murders in the left wing group's campaign against the West German state in the 1970s, was released from a prison in southern Germany in the early hours, justice official Wolfgang Deuschl said.

"Frau Mohnhaupt has been freed," he told reporters, adding that the woman was collected at the prison by friends. A German court last month granted her parole because she has served her minimum sentence and is no longer considered a threat. But the families of the victims of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang, have bitterly opposed the release, partly because Mohnhaupt has never expressed remorse for the murders.
An unrepentant Marxist murderer... and they let her go.
She was part of the second generation of RAF leaders who took over after Ulrike Meinhof, Andreas Baader, Jan-Carl Raspe and Gudrun Ennslin were caught and committed suicide in jail. The RAF's campaign reached a bloody crescendo in the so-called German Autumn in 1977 when they kidnapped and killed leading industrialist and former Nazi Hanns-Martin Schleyer and hijacked a Lufthansa passenger plane with the help of Palestinian militants. Schleyer's widow was among those who opposed Mohnhaupt's release, saying she was "appalled" at the move.
Ah. Palestinians. Who could have guessed...
The RAF is believed to have killed 34 people. Its other victims include the head of Dresdner Bank, Juergen Ponto, who was shot dead on his doorstep. The group also launched attacks against US military personnel stationed in Germany. In 1981, Mohnhaupt helped to launch a rocket attack on an American general, Frederick Kroesen. He barely survived. The former philosophy student was finally arrested at an RAF arms cache in a forest near Frankfurt in 1982.
With a record like that, these people should have hanged.
Her release had initially been scheduled for Tuesday. Mohnhaupt has given no indication of what she wants to do outside prison. A priest who has regularly visited her in prison in Bavaria in southern Germany over the past 15 years, said she was a "very nice" person who would lead a peaceful life, like other former RAF activists who had completed their prison sentences.
Gullible fool...
"The RAF has renounced violence and Brigitte Mohnhaupt did so along with them," priest Siegfried Fleiner told AFP. "She is an independent and intelligent woman," he added. Fleiner said he believed Mohnhaupt will find it difficult to re-adjust to life outside prison but added: "Lately she has been reading several newspapers a day. She is very well-informed about world events."
Trust me, that's not a good sign.
The RAF disbanded in 1988, but the hardliners and their class war still fascinates Germans. In recent days newspapers have recalled the violence-filled German Autumn in detail. Some 20 former militants of the group have been freed after serving lengthy sentences. Only three still remain behind bars, including Christian Klar who led the group along with Mohnhaupt.

Klar was last month refused prison day releases after calling for "the total defeat of the capitalists' aims" in a speech read out on his behalf at a Marxist meeting in Berlin. Mohnhaupt's release comes as Italy is again confronted with the memory of the Red Brigades, who conducted a similar anti-capitalist struggle in the 1970s, with the arrest of fugitive Cesare Battisti who was long sheltered in France.

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Europe

France Can Extradite Italian Commie. Maybe.

2004-10-14

France's highest court on Wednesday upheld a lower court ruling that a former Italian left-wing militant and convicted murderer who escaped prison in the 1980s can be extradited. Italian Justice Minister Roberto Castelli called the ruling concerning Cesare Battisti "another step ahead" and expressed satisfaction with the court's decision, the ANSA news agency said. However, the fugitive-turned-writer — who remains in hiding — said through his new lawyer that his fight to stay in France is not over.

"Vous'll never extradite me alive, gendarmes!"

Even if Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin signs the extradition order, Battisti can appeal to the Council of State. Battisti's new ~~mouthpiece~~ lawyer, Eric Turcon, suggested that his client would do so. Battisti is a former member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism who escaped from an Italian prison in 1981.

Armed Proletarians for Communism, huh? One of the biggies...

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Europe

Ex-terrorist writer faces extradition from France

2004-02-17

EFL
A reformed Italian terrorist turned successful crime writer has been arrested and faces extradition from France, despite a longstanding promise that Paris would always provide a safe haven for one-time Red Brigades militants. The arrest last week of Cesare Battisti, who has lived peaceably and openly in the French capital since 1990, has prompted a storm of protest. "France offered judicial protection to these men and women," a Socialist party spokesman, Julien Dray, said yesterday. "Not to respect that promise would be unworthy of Franceâs traditions and an insult to our history."
For all those people living in an EU member state who are wanted for a criminal activity in an another EU member state, its time to leave.

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