RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's President-elect Jair Bolsonaro endorsed President Michel Temer on Tuesday over his decision to extradite Italian citizen Cesare Battisti who is accused of four murders in his home country.
Battisti was accused of four murders in the 1970s and sentenced to life in prison. He fled to Brazil in 2004 and was identified and arrested in 2007.
Denying the accusations, Battisti said that he was suffering political persecution. He was granted asylum by the former administration of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
However, Supreme Court Judge Luiz Fux last week ordered Battisti's arrest on the Interpol's request. After that, President Temer revoked the asylum and signed an order to extradite Battisti to Italy.
Battisti is currently at large, and has not been seen since shortly after the end of this year's elections in Brazil. His whereabouts are unknown and there is speculation on whether he has already managed to leave the country.
"Since the Cesare Battisti case was discussed, and his permanence in Brazil under asylum was discussed, I already criticized this, because this man is a terrorist," Bolsonaro said.
"Judge Fux's order gave the president, either Temer or myself, in the future, the power to decide whether to grant him asylum or not," the president-elect added.
