Italy has sent an aircraft to Bolivia to pick up fugitive left-wing militant Cesare Battisti after he was captured there nearly three decades after being convicted of murder in his home country.
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Bolivian police, working with Italian agents on the ground, arrested Battisti, 64, overnight in Santa Cruz de La Sierra, Italian police said.
He had been living in Brazil for years, but last month Brazil's outgoing president signed a decree ordering his extradition, apparently sparking Battisti's latest flight.
Italian police released a video of Battisti they said was taken hours before his capture, showing him seemingly oblivious to the surveillance cameras tracking him as he walked casually down the street in jeans, a blue T-shirt and sunglasses.
A subsequent image showed Battisti's mug shot under the seal of the Bolivian police.
"Cesare Battisti's long flight is over," Justice Minister Alfonso Buonafede declared.
Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said a government aircraft was expected to land on Sunday afternoon in Bolivia, but it wasn't clear if Battisti had to first pass through Brazil.
Italian and Brazilian authorities vowed to have Battisti extradited "as quickly as possible".
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.
He was convicted in absentia in 1990, and is facing a life term for the deaths of two police officers, a jeweller and a butcher.
Battisti has acknowledged membership in the group but has denied killing anyone and has painted himself as a political refugee.
Battisti initially fled to Mexico and then went to France, where he joined dozens of left-wing Italian militants who enjoyed official protection from the French government.
Like Battisti, they had fled during Italy's "years of lead", a bloody and turbulent era during the 1970s and 80s when militants on the left and right carried out bombings, assassinations and other violent acts to try to bring down the Italian government.
After political winds shifted in France, Battisti fled to Brazil in 2004 to avoid being extradited. He was arrested in Rio de Janeiro in 2007, prompting the Italian government to request that he be handed over. But former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva granted him asylum in 2010.
Battisti was eventually released from jail but was arrested again in 2017 after he was caught trying to cross the Brazil-Bolivia border carrying the equivalent of about $US7500 in undeclared cash. He was released after a few days.
As a result of that incident, Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal Justice Luiz Fux said in December that Interpol had issued a request for Battisti's arrest on tax evasion and money-laundering charges, leading him to issue a Brazilian warrant.
Based on that, outgoing Brazilian President Michel Temer signed the decree ordering the fugitive's extradition.
Australian Associated Press
