July 16 (Reuters) – Nicaragua severed diplomatic relations with Italy on Thursday over Rome’s long-running demand to extradite a former Red Brigades militant convicted for his role in the 1978 kidnapping and killing of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro.
Nicaragua’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement the decision was triggered by comments from Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who criticized the Central American country for its sheltering of Italian-born Alessio Casimirri.
Italy’s foreign ministry, when asked to comment on Nicaragua’s breaking of ties, reiterated Tajani’s call for Casimirri to be extradited.
“We tell Nicaragua that granting immunity to a criminal is unacceptable,” Tajani said in comments on Wednesday.
Moro, a former prime minister and leader of Italy’s Christian Democrats, was kidnapped by the far-left Red Brigades in March 1978. The group demanded the release of imprisoned members in exchange for his safety, but Moro was found dead in the trunk of a car some two months later.
Casimirri fled to Nicaragua in 1983 when the country was ruled by the leftist Sandinista Front. He was granted Nicaraguan citizenship in 1989, married a Nicaraguan woman and went on to run an Italian restaurant in the capital, Managua.
Although Casimirri has admitted to being a member of the Red Brigades during Italy’s “years of lead” in the 1970s and 1980s, he has denied participating in the actual attack on Moro.
Italy has spent decades attempting to extradite Casimirri, but efforts have repeatedly stalled.
Nicaragua’s government withdrew his nationality in 1993, but the country’s Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that citizenship could only be revoked by tribunals. Under Nicaragua’s constitution, the extradition of nationals is banned, and the two countries have no bilateral extradition treaty.
(Reporting by Gabriela Selser and Angelo Amante in Rome, Writing by Natalia Siniawski and Daina Beth Solomon, Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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