A man who appears to be Italian fugitive Cesare Battisti enters the cabin door of a plane before it takes off for Italy, where he will serve a life sentence, at the airport in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019. Battisti escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial on four counts of murder allegedly committed when he was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism. (AP Photo)

The Latest: Italian fugitive arrives in Rome on plane

By The Associated Press January 14, 2019 at 3:49am

ROME (AP) — The Latest on Italian fugitive captured in Bolivia (all times local):

11:45 a.m.

A left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago has arrived in Rome to serve a life prison sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents.

An Italian military aircraft carrying Cesare Battisti landed at Rome’s Ciampino airport shortly after 1030 GMT (11:30 a.m. local) Monday, as snipers kept watch. Italy’s justice and interior ministers, who have rejoiced that Battisti’s victims will finally see justice, were on hand to turn him over to prison authorities.

Battisti was arrested Saturday in Santa Cruz, Bolivia’s largest city, where he was located by intelligence agents after using one of his mobile devices. Italy sent an aircraft to bring him home for the first time since he fled in 1981 as he awaited trial and dodged extradition by claiming to sympathetic left-wing governments on both sides of the Atlantic that he was a political refugee.

___

6:15 a.m.

A left-wing Italian militant who was convicted of murder three decades ago is heading home to serve a life sentence, after his life as a celebrity fugitive came to an abrupt end with his arrest in Bolivia by a team of Interpol agents.

Cesare Battisti was handed over to Italian custody late Sunday in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, where he was located by Italian intelligence agents after using one of his mobile devices. Italy sent a government aircraft to pick him up, and the plane left late Sunday.

A photo released by the Italian interior ministry showed Battisti sitting in the aircraft with a gray blanket over his lap.

He was due to arrive in Rome on Monday afternoon and be immediately transferred to the capital’s main Rebibbia prison.

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