Well, well, well...
It's not the first time here in France
that journalists make some psychopathological murderer into a hero,
just because he's on the right side - the Left side, that is.
The only difference is that, this time,
the mainstream European Left isn't following.
In Italy, the country where he killed four people,
the Socialist Party isn't following.
In fact, Luciano Violante, the former president of the Parliament,
finds the French attitude highly inappropriate.
Yet, read Liberation or Le Monde Diplomatique
and you will feel that all the Italian Left is against his extradition.
They even published a declaration that he (Battisti)
sent to the AFP (Agence France Presse),
titled Je n'ai pas tué
(I didn't kill).
In fact, what those Socialist newspapers do is a low-grade gimmick.
Battisti says he didn't commit the murders
for which he was sentenced to life in prison,
but they purposefully forget to remind the readers
of the four murders he recognized and claimed.
And most people read those so-called newspapers,
and think the horrible Berlusconi is in fact trying to put into prison
a militant
that never hurt anyone.
Now, some of our media are speaking about a family life broken.
So let's walk through the cemetery and remember.
1. The 6th of June 1978, Battisti shot the warden Antonio Santorro to death.
He fired in his back, and used several bullets
to make sure he would not survive.
Had he not a family?
2. The 16th of February 1979, Battisti shot the butcher
(no, not a rightist, just somebody who sells meat, you know)
Lino Sabbadin in his shop.
He was with an accomplice.
He personally fired two bullets into him as he was already unconscious.
They did not do it to rob him,
but because he had tried to prevent a previous hold-up by Battisti's gang.
The same day, people sent by him killed
the jeweler Pierluigi Torregiani for the same reason.
Had they not children?
Well, in fact the jeweler had one.
He was touched by a bullet, and is paralyzed for life.
3. The 19th of April 1979, he killed the policeman Andrea Campagna.
He did that because this policeman had appeared on TV
in a documentary about the arrest of Terregiani's assassins.
He was shot dead, with five bullets.
He was visiting his fiancee.
He will never have children.
Now French media are trying to shift the public opinion in favor of this guy.
They say that the case was not validated by the European Human Rights Court
- it was, anybody can verify that.
They say that Battisti is a victim of his past.
I'd rather not stay too long on that, because it's puking material.
They say that France should keep its promise not to transfer him.
Well, the promise was made by Mitterrand
in the name of the people who elected him,
and now the people of France have elected another president.
Now I wonder why the debate is not rather
on the opportunity to reinstate the death penalty.
That I would understand.
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