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A 74-year-old former member of Italy’s Red Brigades has escaped from house arrest in Buenos Aires by rappelling down the outside of a five-storey apartment building using a harness and rope, triggering a nationwide manhunt in Argentina.
Leonardo Bertulazzi, who faces extradition to Italy to serve a combined 27-year sentence for terrorism-related convictions, fled on Tuesday and remained at large on Wednesday, Argentine police officials told The Associated Press.
According to police, Bertulazzi descended from his fifth-floor apartment to a second-floor terrace on a neighbouring building, climbed down to a first-floor terrace, crossed a vacant lot and scaled a gate onto the street. Authorities did not immediately detect his absence because he had disabled his electronic ankle monitor before leaving.
He had placed the device inside a homemade apparatus containing a thermal blanket, along with grease or animal fat, apparently to sustain the monitor’s temperature reading and retain moisture — creating the impression that it was still being worn. The contraption was constructed to resemble an explosive, and explosives specialists were called in to examine it.
Argentina’s Security Ministry has offered a reward of 20 million pesos, roughly $13,000, for information leading to his recapture.
Decades of legal battles
Bertulazzi belonged to the Genoa branch of the Red Brigades, the far-left armed group responsible for a wave of kidnappings and killings across Italy during the 1970s and 1980s — a period known as the “Years of Lead.” Argentine authorities have said he was involved in the logistics of the 1978 kidnapping and killing of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, one of the most notorious political crimes in postwar European history.
Italian courts convicted him in absentia during the 1980s. He was first arrested in Buenos Aires in November 2002, but an Argentine judge rejected Italy’s extradition request the following year on the grounds that Italian law did not guarantee him a retrial after an in-absentia conviction. He was granted refugee status in Argentina in 2004.
That status was revoked in 2024 under President Javier Milei’s right-wing government, and Bertulazzi was re-arrested in August of that year. Argentina’s Supreme Court subsequently approved his extradition.
Wanda Ferro, an undersecretary in Italy’s Interior Ministry, said Argentine police bore responsibility for ensuring the handover took place. “I am certain that every effort will be made,” she told Italian television, adding that she hoped extradition could proceed “very quickly” if Bertulazzi is recaptured.