Judges Alejandro Slokar and Ángela Ledesma ordered the release of a former member of the Red Brigades whom the Argentine State recognized as a political refugee 20 years ago and who was imprisoned for more than three months due to an operation by the minister.
The Federal Court of Criminal Cassation dismantled, at least temporarily, a staging by Minister Patricia Bullrich and her chief of staff Carlos Manfroni by which they kept imprisoned for almost three months a former member of the Red Brigades whom the Argentine State recognized as a political refugee 20 years ago. Judges Alejandro Slokar and Ángela Ledesma ordered his release by annulling the resolution of the Federal Court that validated the press operation of the libertarian government, criticizing it because the Italian citizen’s roots in Argentina had not been weighed and his refugee status was still in force.
Leonardo Bertulazzi, 72, was accused of participating in the 1977 kidnapping of businessman Piero Costa, who was released after paying a million-dollar ransom. That same year he was detained until the end of 1979, so he had no connection with the assassination of Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978, as was erroneously reported. He managed to escape from Italy, where he was convicted in absentia, and in July 2003 he was discovered in Buenos Aires. He was detained for eight months but Judge María Servini released him because Argentine law does not provide for extradition in cases of conviction in absentia. In 2004 he was considered a political refugee by the National Commission for Refugees (CONARE). In 2018, the Italian Court of Cassation confirmed the extinction of the sentence by statute of limitations, so he could return to his country without risk of being arrested, but months later the Court of Appeal of Genoa determined that the statute of limitations had not occurred because his detention in Argentina had restarted the counting of the term from zero. None of this affected his freedom in Argentina, not only because of the recognition as a refugee but also because of the rulings of the Supreme Court of Justice against the extradition of people convicted in absentia.
His situation changed abruptly on August 29, two days after Vice President Victoria Villarruel promised to reopen the trials of former Montoneros militants. That Thursday, CONARE – in which the government of Javier Milei, in use of the powers delegated by the Bases Law, included by decree a member of the Ministry of Security and eliminated the position corresponding to INADI – declared the cessation of Bertulazzi’s refugee status and, in record time, his arrest was ordered, which Bullrich publicized on anti-social networks: “We arrested a terrorist former Red Brigades of Italy,” she headlined. She accused him of having “been part of the gang that kidnapped and murdered former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro,” which took place while Bertulazzi was in prison, and fantasized that “we caught him” (sic) thanks to “deep intelligence work by the Ministry of Security, the DNIC (read National Directorate of Criminal Intelligence), the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior.” The dangerous terrorist was in the house where he has lived for twenty years.
Chamber 2 of the Federal Court confirmed the rejection of his release on September 12, a resolution on which Cassation has now ruled. With the votes of Slokar and Ledesma, and the dissent of Guillermo Yacobucci, it allowed the appeal filed by the official defense, regarding the freedom of the refugee. Slokar, who led the agreement, argued that the Federal Court’s decision had not evaluated the applicant’s personal circumstances, which would be conducive to granting freedom. He recalled that on October 7, 2004 “he was recognized as a refugee by the Executive Branch” and highlighted the existence of the defendant’s roots in our country, based on the fact that “he has lived with his wife for twenty years in the same home, of which – by the way – he is the owner.”
In his opinion, referring to the suspensive effect of the administrative and judicial appeals against the resolution of August 29 – which had his status as a political refugee terminated – he highlighted the appellant’s allegations: “since we are within the period of 180 days prior to its filing […] until it is complied with, the guarantee of non-refoulement must be respected while the cessation is not final,” according to the General Law on Refugee Recognition and Protection, number 26,165. Slokar and Ledesma decided to admit the appeal filed by the official defense and order the court to issue a new resolution, in accordance with the established criteria.
Source: Página 12