A 74-year-old former senior member of Italy’s radical Marxist group, the Red Brigades, Leonardo Bertulazzi, has escaped house arrest in Buenos Aires, Argentina, authorities confirmed Wednesday. Bertulazzi, sentenced in 1987 to 27 years in prison for involvement in a subversive armed group, was awaiting extradition to Italy when he fled his detention.
The Argentine security ministry announced a $13,000 reward for information leading to Bertulazzi’s capture after he reportedly slipped away from his fifth-floor residence. Surveillance footage showed Bertulazzi lowering himself into a public road early in the morning on November 10, just after 6 a.m., before he disappeared.
Details of the Escape
<pAccording to a detective tracking Bertulazzi and reports in La Nación, the fugitive executed a carefully planned escape. He first removed his electronic ankle monitor and concealed it inside a tube filled with pork and equipped with a blood pressure monitor to maintain temperature. Using a harness and rope, he rappelled down from the fifth floor, dropped onto a vacant lot behind the building, and then climbed a metal gate to reach the street.
Police discovered the discarded ankle monitor at the residence soon after noticing it had stopped transmitting movement data, but Bertulazzi was nowhere to be found.
Background and Legal Status
Bertulazzi has a long history related to the Red Brigades, a militant Marxist organization responsible for a violent campaign in Italy between 1969 and 1980, including the 1978 kidnapping and assassination of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro. After years on the run, Argentine authorities arrested him in 2002, though he was freed several months later and granted refugee status in 2004.
This status was revoked in 2024, when Argentine authorities rearrested him and placed him under house arrest ahead of extradition to Italy. Argentina’s Supreme Court rejected his final appeal, leading to his planned extradition, which was approved in July 2025.
