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It has convicted him in absentia to life imprisonment for the murders of four people in the 1970s carried out by the Armed Proletarians for Communism, a violent Marxist group to which he belonged.
Battisti denies participation in the murders, of a prison guard, a special investigator of terrorist groups, a butcher and a jeweler, attributed to the group.
After fleeing Italy's justice in 1981, he renounced his militant past and remade himself as a successful crime writer in France, where he lived in exile for 14 years.
When French laws protecting him and other repentant former foreign militants were changed, Battisti fled again, arriving in Rio de Janeiro in 2004 with fake identification documents.
He was arrested in Rio three years later at Italy's request and has been in detention since.
Italy has repeatedly sought to have Battisti's political asylum revoked, but was rebuffed by both Brazil's supreme court in February and by Brazil's attorney general in May. Italy's ambassador was briefly recalled from Brazil in a gesture of fury.
But while the Brazilian court maintained the legality of Battisti's asylum, its 11 justices have made it clear that the government's decision would not pre-empt their own deliberation on the extradition request.
If the court does eventually decide that Battisti -- ostensibly under Brazil's protection -- can be extradited, that could create a stunning constitutional conundrum, a clash between the country's executive and judicial branches.
Under that scenario, it would ultimately be up to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to either back his justice minister's decision -- or validate the verdict by the country's top court.
Battisti has given only rare interviews from jail.
In his latest, given to the popular Brazilian newspaper O Globo by email last week, he claimed Italy had acted with "inadmissible arrogance" by trying to reverse his asylum.
"I don't think the supreme court will let itself be influenced or intimidated. It knows that in my case there is no possibility of a fair defense in Italy... I refuse to think there is any possibility at all of extradition."
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Battisti denies participation in the murders, of a prison guard, a special investigator of terrorist groups, a butcher and a jeweler, attributed to the group.
After fleeing Italy's justice in 1981, he renounced his militant past and remade himself as a successful crime writer in France, where he lived in exile for 14 years.
When French laws protecting him and other repentant former foreign militants were changed, Battisti fled again, arriving in Rio de Janeiro in 2004 with fake identification documents.
He was arrested in Rio three years later at Italy's request and has been in detention since.
Italy has repeatedly sought to have Battisti's political asylum revoked, but was rebuffed by both Brazil's supreme court in February and by Brazil's attorney general in May. Italy's ambassador was briefly recalled from Brazil in a gesture of fury.
But while the Brazilian court maintained the legality of Battisti's asylum, its 11 justices have made it clear that the government's decision would not pre-empt their own deliberation on the extradition request.
If the court does eventually decide that Battisti -- ostensibly under Brazil's protection -- can be extradited, that could create a stunning constitutional conundrum, a clash between the country's executive and judicial branches.
Under that scenario, it would ultimately be up to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to either back his justice minister's decision -- or validate the verdict by the country's top court.
Battisti has given only rare interviews from jail.
In his latest, given to the popular Brazilian newspaper O Globo by email last week, he claimed Italy had acted with "inadmissible arrogance" by trying to reverse his asylum.
"I don't think the supreme court will let itself be influenced or intimidated. It knows that in my case there is no possibility of a fair defense in Italy... I refuse to think there is any possibility at all of extradition."
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