Cesare Battisti (born 18 December 1954) is an Italian terrorist, former member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism (PAC), a far-left militant and terrorist group which committed acts of illegality and crimes in Italy in the late 1970s during the period known as the "Years of Lead". He was sentenced to life imprisonment in Italy for four homicides (two policemen, a jeweller and a butcher). He fled Italy first to France and then to Mexico before settling in Brazil where he lived as a free man until an order of extradition issued in December 2018. He then fled to Santa Cruz in Bolivia, where he was arrested in 2019 by an Italian team of Interpol and extradited to Italy where is currently under arrest. He is also a fiction author, having written 15 novels. Battisti was sentenced to 12 years for being a member of an armed group and for the material killing of two people and instigating another two homicides. He fled to France in 1981, where he received protection under the Mitterrand doctrine. Later, he was tried in absentia based on testimony in Pietro Mutti's trial implicating him in four murders, bringing the total number of charges against him to 36. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1995. After the de facto repeal of the Mitterrand doctrine in 2002, Battisti fled to Brazil under a false identity to avoid a possible extradition. He was arrested in Rio de Janeiro on 18 March 2007 by Brazilian and French police officers. Later, the Brazilian Minister of Justice Tarso Genro granted him the status of political refugee, in a controversial decision which was much criticized in Italy, even in Brazil and the international press. On 5 February 2009, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in support of Italy and held a minute of silence in memory to Battisti's victims. On 18 November 2009, the Brazilian Supreme Court considered the refugee status illegal and allowed extradition, but also stated that the Brazilian constitution gives the president personal powers to deny the extradition if he chooses to, effectively putting the final decision in the hands of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. On 31 December 2010, on Lula's last effective day as president, the decision not to allow extradition was officially announced. Battisti was released on 9 June 2011 from prison after the Brazilian Constitutional Court denied Italy's request to