An elderly leftist climbed over the balcony and escaped from house arrest

Argentina's security ministry confirmed Wednesday that a 74-year-old former member of Italy's radical leftist terrorist group, the Red Brigades, had escaped house arrest in the Latin American country after he reportedly placed a monitor from his ankle in a pork container and descended from a fifth-floor balcony.

Authorities placed Leonardo Bertulazzi under house arrest in Buenos Aires in 2024, pending his extradition to Italy to serve a 27-year prison sentence. In 1987, he was sentenced to prison for joining a subversive organization and belonging to an armed group.

After years of flight, Bertulazzi was first arrested by Argentine authorities in 2002. A few months later, he was released and granted refugee status in 2004, but was arrested again in 2024 after his status was revoked.

On Wednesday, Argentina's security ministry offered a $13,000 reward for information that would lead to Bertulazzi's capture after he escapes custody.

The fugitive held a senior position in the Red Brigades, a radical far-left organization responsible for the attacks between 1969 and 1980. This notorious group kidnapped and murdered former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978.

Surveillance footage shows Bertulazzi falling from the building onto a public road as cars drove by.

A detective who followed a former member of the Red Brigades reportedly told La Nación that Bertulazzi went down the fifth floor using a safety belt.

He first took off his electronic ankle monitor and placed it on a tube filled with pork, along with a blood pressure sensor to maintain temperature. He then climbed onto the roof and, using a rope, went down five meters until he jumped into the wasteland behind the building where he lived, then climbed over a metal gate to get out into the street, the detective said.

The footage, which showed 6.01am on November 10, shows how, apparently shocked after a dizzying escape, Bertulazzi sat down to rest for a few moments.

Police noticed that the monitor on his ankle had stopped transmitting movement data and went to the house, where they found that the device had been removed and Bertulazzi was nowhere to be found.

Argentina approved his extradition to Italy in July 2025 after the country's supreme court rejected the latest appeal.