Former Red Brigades member Leonardo Bertulazzi, 74, has escaped from house arrest in Buenos Aires. His lawyer told ANSA. The General Directorate of Criminal Intelligence has issued an urgent alert to locate him immediately. Bertulazzi was under house arrest in an apartment in downtown Buenos Aires.
After his refugee status was revoked, he managed to evade authorities and flee, immediately sparking a nationwide manhunt. Before his escape, Argentine justice had also rejected the final appeal by Bertulazzi's lawyer, Rodolfo Yanzon, against extradition. And Interpol, according to what the lawyer himself told ANSA, was already ready to pick up the former Red Brigade member and bring him to Italy.
Bertulazzi was sentenced to 27 years for the kidnapping of industrialist Pietro Costa and for armed gang membership. He was arrested in 2024 after 44 years on the run in South America. In the 1970s, he was part of the Genoa column of the Red Brigades and participated in the kidnapping of engineer Pietro Costa, whose family paid a billion lire ransom.
This sum was used by the Red Brigades to purchase the apartment on Via Montalcini in Rome, which would become Aldo Moro's prison the following year. Initially arrested in 2002, Bertulazzi was released by an Argentine court, as the country does not allow extradition for defendants convicted in absentia. Buenos Aires, meanwhile, had granted the terrorist political refugee status, which was revoked in 2024.
(Unioneonline)
