PARIS — An Italian national convicted of left-wing domestic terrorism decades ago turned himself in to authorities in Paris on Thursday, French prosecutors said.
Luigi Bergamin voluntarily presented himself to the Paris courthouse, according to the prosecutors’ office.
The move is part of a broader police operation that saw seven Italians arrested at their homes in France on Wednesday. They had been convicted of crimes in the 1970s and 1980s and included several former members of the Red Brigades,.
Bergamin was among three people still being sought by police.
He was a member of the Armed Proletarians for Communism, a far-left group created in 1976 and disbanded three years later that was accused of having committed several attacks and murders during Italy’s “Years of Lead.”
The arrests followed negotiation and agreement between Italy and France after decades during which Paris refused to act on many of the arrest warrants issued by Italy for convicted left-wing terrorists. The individuals had fled Italy and sought refuge abroad before they could be imprisoned to serve their sentences.
Five of those arrested were former members of the Red Brigades, a group active during the 1970s and 1980s that carried out killings, kidnappings and so-called “kneecappings,” in which targets were shot in the legs. The group later fell dormant.
Among those detained on Wednesday was was Giorgio Petrostefani, 77, a militant from the far-left group Lotta Continua (Struggle Continues). Petrostefani was convicted of the 1972 slaying of Milan Police Chief Luigi Calabresi and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Also arrested was a member of the Armed Cells Against Territorial Power, which Italian police described as a subversive group, convicted of the 1979 killing of a Carabinieri police officer.
