Bolsonaro wants to become Italian
Rights — di Simone Santi
Bolsonaro would like Italian citizenship to avoid arrest for crimes against humanity. But there is an extradition treaty between Italy and Brazil.
Bolsonaro wants to become Italian
Bolsonaro would like Italian citizenship to avoid arrest for crimes against humanity. But there is an extradition treaty between Italy and Brazil.
- Bolsonaro, who boasts Italian grandparents, is said to be accelerating the procedure to obtain Italian citizenship.
- The former Brazilian president, accused of crimes against humanity, would like to use this to escape a potential arrest.
- An extradition treaty is in force between Italy and Brazil.
Italy for Jair Bolsonaro as Cesare Battisti was for Italy. It is the far-fetched idea of the former Brazilian president, under accusation for crimes against humanity over the management of the Covid emergency and now once again in the eye of the storm over the assault on the parliament in Brasília. According to the Brazilian newspaper Istoè, he is said to be trying to fast-track the acquisition of Italian citizenship, together with his entire family, in order to move to our country and avoid prison in the event of a potential conviction.
The flight to Florida may not be enough
Bolsonaro has not returned to Brazil since shortly before Lula's inauguration, against whom he lost in the run-off in the 2022 presidential elections: according to the New York Times he is currently in Orlando, Florida, in a house rented for one month.
The front page of today’s New York Times:
President Lula arrives. “Loser is absent.”
President Lula arrives. “Loser is absent.”
But the flight to the United States may no longer be sufficient – according to Istoè – because in the event of an arrest warrant issued by Brazilian justice, the FBI could still come knocking at his door. All the more so now that, following what happened at the parliament in Brasília, many Democratic members of the United States Congress, starting with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are loudly calling for the extradition of Jair Bolsonaro.
Nearly 2 years to the day the US Capitol was attacked by fascists, we see fascist movements abroad attempt to do the same in Brazil.
We must stand in solidarity with @LulaOficial’s democratically elected government. 🇧🇷
The US must cease granting refuge to Bolsonaro in Florida.
We must stand in solidarity with @LulaOficial’s democratically elected government. 🇧🇷
The US must cease granting refuge to Bolsonaro in Florida.
For this reason the entire Bolsonaro family (he, his wife and a minor daughter) is said to have already asked the Italian embassy in Brasília to speed up the granting of Italian citizenship.
The Venetian grandfather card
For this reason Bolsonaro is said to be thinking of falling back on our country, playing the card of his ancestry: the former sovereigntist president does indeed have Italian forebears: his grandfather Vittorio Bolzonaro, with a z, emigrated to Brazil from the Veneto in 1888, and that could be enough for the whole family to become Italian. Italian rules in fact provide that it is possible to submit a request for Italian citizenship when you are a child or direct-line grandchild of Italian citizens by birth, and have been legally resident in Italy for at least 3 years: Bolsonaro meets the first requirement, while that of legal residency is the main stumbling block. Bolsonaro is, however, already an honorary citizen of Anguillara Veneta, his grandfather's town: on 1 November 2021 he went in person to the small town of his roots to collect the honour, which was in any case strongly contested by other residents (who are now calling for it to be revoked).
O presidente Jair Bolsonaro foi internado nesta segunda-feira em um hospital nos arredores de Orlando, na Flórida, alegando estar com fortes dores abdominais istoe.com.br/bolsonaro-e-in…
The Italy-Brazil extradition treaty and the Battisti case
According to Istoè, Bolsonaro would be safer in Italy, firstly because he would be an Italian citizen, and secondly because Italy "has not entered into an extradition treaty" with Brazil. This latter claim is, however, incorrect: Italy and Brazil did in fact sign a treaty in 1989, which then definitively entered into force in Italian territory in 1991 and is perfectly valid. That treaty did not, however, prevent Brazil from refusing for years the extradition of former terrorist Cesare Battisti, convicted of four murders during the Years of Lead: it was only in 2019, after fleeing and being arrested in Bolivia, that Battisti was extradited to Italy, under the Bolsonaro presidency, after political asylum had been granted to him by Lula in 2009. The Italy-Brazil treaty provides for certain circumstances in which a country may refuse extradition:
- if the act for which extradition is requested is considered by the requested Party to be a political offence;
- if the requested Party has serious reasons to believe that the requested person will be subjected to persecutory or discriminatory acts on grounds of race, religion, sex, nationality, language, political opinions or personal or social conditions, or that the situation of said person risks being aggravated by one of the aforementioned elements.
The latter was the official justification underlying Lula's refusal to extradite Battisti. Bolsonaro, therefore, is probably banking on an alleged privileged relationship with the current Italian government, with which he shares conservative and sovereigntist positions: it is worth noting that the Italian government was the only one, among the major European countries, not to send even a single representative to Lula's inauguration as president of Brazil at the start of the year.
L’Italia è stata l’unica assente all’insediamento di @LulaOficial.
🇩🇪 e 🇵🇹 sono stati presenti con il presidente, 🇪🇸 con il Re.
Pigrizia, dimenticanza o intenzione di segnare distanza ideologica? Comunque Meloni fa fare brutta figura al nostro paese 9colonne.it/393294/brasile…
🇩🇪 e 🇵🇹 sono stati presenti con il presidente, 🇪🇸 con il Re.
Pigrizia, dimenticanza o intenzione di segnare distanza ideologica? Comunque Meloni fa fare brutta figura al nostro paese 9colonne.it/393294/brasile…
The former president might also try to claim a kind of "credit" for having unblocked, after years, the Battisti case. Nothing, however, currently suggests that Italy might take a political step as significant as refusing a hypothetical extradition to Brazil of a Bolsonaro found guilty by a court.
Quanto accade in Brasile non può lasciarci indifferenti. Le immagini dell’irruzione nelle sedi istituzionali sono inaccettabili e incompatibili con qualsiasi forma di dissenso democratico. È urgente un ritorno alla normalità ed esprimiamo solidarietà alle Istituzioni brasiliane.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni condemned the actions of Bolsonaro's supporters on the day of the siege of parliament. "What is happening in Brazil cannot leave us indifferent. The images of the storming of institutional buildings are unacceptable and incompatible with any form of democratic dissent. An urgent return to normality is needed and we express our solidarity with Brazilian institutions." Clear words, even if written without ever naming the former president.