France wants to extradite ten Red Brigadists to Italy. Do those South Tyrol activists who have gone abroad have to fear now? Questions to constitutional lawyer Karl Zeller.
TAGESZEITUNG Online: Mr. Zeller, France has given in to pressure from Rome and given up the so-called Mitterand Doctrine. Ten Red Brigadists are to be extradited to Italy. Will this step by France bring about a climate change in Europe that South Tyrol activists living abroad must also fear?
Karl Zeller: No, I do not think so. The South Tyrol activists who are abroad have long since become German or Austrian citizens. That is an essential difference. The Red Brigadists now arrested in France were not French citizens.
So you see no danger for people like Siegfried Steger from the Puschtra Buibm?
No, because as a rule states do not extradite their own citizens. In addition, one cannot compare the terrorism of the Red Brigades and the actions of the South Tyrol activists.
So you do not believe that Italy will approach Austria or Germany to obtain the extradition of convicts?
I don’t know, but I can’t imagine that the Austrian Chancellor will come and hand over Austrian citizens to Italy. Of course Austria could come and say: We deliver. Each state can decide for itself. But when it comes to your own citizens, it’s very, very difficult.
So you see no risk of a change in mood at European level?
No, the situation is also not comparable to that of Cesare Battisti …
… the left-wing terrorist who found refuge in Brazil and was ultimately extradited from Bolivia to Italy …
Yes, as long as Battisti had the protection of President Lula, he had nothing to fear. But if the host state no longer protects you, then you have to run away … But as I said: we in the Red Brigades are talking about a completely different type of terrorism.
Left-wing terrorism cannot be compared with terrorism in South Tyrol?
No, he was much, much more bloody and much more political. And it wasn’t a struggle for freedom! That’s why it’s a completely different situation, it’s two different things. It is now widely recognized that Italy’s behavior after the Second World War helped fuel the attacks in South Tyrol. You can’t say that about the Red Brigades, because they would have had every democratic opportunity to implement their goals. But they didn’t want that, they wanted to bomb a new social order.
What about the efforts for a pardon for Siegfried Steger & Co.?
(laughs) The less you talk about it, the better it is. The more you pull on the President’s skirt, the less the pardon comes.
Interview: Artur Oberhofer
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