Bertulazzi escaped by lowering himself with a rope, Argentina places a bounty

It was a sensational escape that of the former BR Leonardo Bertulazzi in Argentina, made in defiance of the police officers who monitored him while he was under house arrest. He escaped on Tuesday afternoon from his apartment on the fifth floor of a building in the San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires by lowering himself with a rope to the street at the back of the building.

And a video published by the Infobae portal taken from a surveillance camera gives an account of the gamble taken. In the images you can see the silhouette of the 74-year-old former BR as he makes the last leap and falls on the pavement of a deserted street, before recomposing himself and walking away with difficulty, but enough to cover his tracks. Previously he had managed to remove the anklet and tamper with it so as not to trigger the alarm of the officers monitoring the house.

On the other hand, the moment of the escape was propitious and, probably, the result of a non-random choice. In those hours at least two and a half million 'portegnos' were flocking to the mass of Pope Leo

For Javier Milei's Argentine government this is a real setback. Bertulazzi, sentenced in absentia in Italy to 27 years for the kidnapping of the industrialist Pietro Costa and for an armed gang, was one step away from extradition, and his escape now embarrasses Buenos Aires.

And while the manhunt was underway, the Ministry of the Interior offered a reward of 20 million pesos (around 11 thousand euros) for information that could help find him.

Before the escape, judge Maria Servini de Cubria had also rejected the last appeal against extradition presented by her lawyer, Rodolfo Yanzon, for health reasons. "During detention Leonardo had three strokes," Bertulazzi's defender told ANSA. "Argentine law clearly establishes that, for health reasons, if a person's condition does not allow it, he cannot be transferred," he underlined. "After the last examination on November 6 at the epilepsy center of the Ramón Mejía hospital, he was prescribed a course of treatment lasting two months", added Yanzon, who therefore justified his client's choice to remain unavailable. "He undoubtedly made a difficult decision and one that I approve of, given that the judge handling the case was not up to the task," he concluded.

Bertulazzi had been in Argentina for about 30 years. Arrested for the first time in 2002 in Buenos Aires, he was then released on the orders of Judge Maria Servini since the law at that time did not allow extradition in cases of conviction in absentia. The Peronist government of Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007) then granted him the status of political refugee, which was revoked in 2024 under the government of Javier Milei.