The accomplices’ chat. First arrests in connection with the escape of former BR member Bertulazzi

Never make a run for it with a computer, let alone a mobile phone. Seventy-four-year-old Red Brigade member Leonardo Bertulazzi – wanted with a 20,000-peso bounty on his head since he slipped away from house arrest like an old Spider-Man right under the noses of Argentine President Milei’s armed guards, who now want to catch him at any cost – dropped a bag containing a wig, make-up, a computer and a mobile phone before his final leap, which saw him land on the pavement from where he then limped away. A quick check of the mobile phone reportedly revealed a group chat with 17 members, including himself under a false name, which the federal police are now pointing to as the hub of those who facilitated his escape.

Yesterday, a man and a woman – he from Uruguay and she from El Salvador – were arrested on charges of helping him escape. However, it was not an investigative unit but the immigration office that reportedly tipped them off. In Argentina, where television channels are describing Bertulazzi as “a terrorist who planted bombs in Italy in the 1970s” – the former Red Brigade member is serving a 27-year sentence for purchasing a second-hand car used in the Costa kidnapping and for membership of an armed gang, not for violent crimes – the theory is currently circulating once again amongst Milei’s opponents that a promise had already been made in 2024, immediately after the president’s election, to the Italian government to arrest Bertulazzi despite him enjoying refugee status granted by Nestor Kirchner’s government. Revoking his status was perhaps possible, they say, but arresting him on the spot was not. Not without first waiting for him to appeal against the revocation and for that appeal to be examined. The arrest warrant, aimed at extradition to Italy, had been signed by Judge María Romilda Servini, the very same judge who had recognised his right to protection two decades earlier. On the evening news, Milei’s then Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, said: “Thanks to the thorough intelligence work carried out by our police in collaboration with the Italian police, we have brought this criminal to justice.”