ROME, Aug 23 (AFP) - Italian Justice Minister Roberto Castelli lashed out Monday at the European left for supporting convicted murderer Cesare Battisti, a well-known crime writer and cult figure in France, where he has lived since 1990.
Battisti, 49, was presumed to have escaped after failing to report to parole officers Saturday.
"I think that we should open a debate about this European left that defends assassins, that defends fugitives." Castelli said.
France agreed in 2002 to an Italian request for Battisti's extradition, but the case has been held up on appeal. Pending a new hearing, Battisti was released in March on condition he reported to police once a week.
Battisti has been convicted in Italy in his absence and sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering a police officer, a prison guard and two others.
Prosecutor Armando Spataro indicated in an interview with the Milan daily Corriere della Sera that French authorities had been lax in allowing Battisti to slip through their fingers.
"His flight was foreseeable and anticipated, at least by those in charge of the case," Spataro said. "Battisti has been condemned to life imprisonment, and anyone in such circumstances is going to try to escape," he said.
"The second reason is that he is a murderer, pure and simple, who has never accepted that he is subject to the law."
Spataro said it was obviously difficult to prevent Battisti's escape, since it was hardly conceivable that he would be under round-the-clock surveillance merely to ensure that he fulfilled the requirement to report to the police.
After Battisti was allowed to settle in France by the late Socialist president Francois Mitterrand, he renounced his past as a leader of the extremist Armed Proletarians for Communism and settled down as a family man and janitor while writing a series of books.
Leftwing intellectuals have rushed to defend him against Italy's rightist government.
Castelli, a member of the xenophobic and right-wing Northern League accused the left of defending "an aberrant culture, a culture of death, a culture that defends those who commit crimes, a culture of those who completely forget the victims."
Unlike Spataro, Castelli did not blame the French government, saying that France's laws of presumption of innocence were the same as Italy's and that he respected the judgement of the court in allowing Battisti's conditional release. But the crux of his argument is that in the European Union, France should equally respect Italy's laws.
In an interview with Radio Padania, the organ of the Northern League, Castelli thanked the French government for "having the courage to assume a position that is extremely unpopular among the most influential media," by agreeing to extradite Battisti.
The fact that Battisti had failed to report to police "shows that he has become what he has always been for us, a fugitive." Castelli said.