Leonardo Bertulazzi, a 74-year-old former member of Italy’s Red Brigades, escaped house arrest in Argentina while awaiting extradition to Italy. (Foto: Instagram)
Leonardo Bertulazzi, a 74-year-old Italian and former member of the Red Brigades, escaped house arrest in Argentina on Tuesday, Nov. 10. Argentina’s government is offering a reward of 20 million pesos, equivalent to about 72,000 Brazilian reais, for information on his whereabouts.
Bertulazzi was being monitored with an electronic ankle bracelet while awaiting extradition to Italy, where he was sentenced to 27 years in prison for terrorism. According to La Nación, he removed the device and placed it inside a tube filled with pork, attempting to make it appear that the bracelet was still being worn.
The newspaper reported that an investigator said Bertulazzi also used climbing equipment and a rope to get away from his fifth-floor apartment. The detective said he climbed onto a roof, lowered himself about five meters to an empty lot behind the building, then climbed a metal gate to reach the street. The bracelet was placed in the pork along with a blood pressure monitor to maintain its temperature, the investigator said.
Bertulazzi was arrested in Argentina in August 2024 after his refugee status was revoked. Italy had convicted him in 1987. The Red Brigades, an Italian paramilitary organization, carried out attacks from 1969 to 1980, a period known in Italy as the Years of Lead.
