A former member of Italy's Red Brigades militant group escaped from house arrest in Buenos Aires on Tuesday, shortly before his planned extradition, Argentina's National Security Ministry confirmed on Wednesday.
Italian authorities had requested the extradition of Leonardo Bertulazzi to serve a 27-year prison sentence handed down in 1987 for subversive association and membership of an armed group.
Bertulazzi, 74, had been under house arrest in the capital since August 2024.
The National Security Ministry on Wednesday offered a reward of 20 million pesos (around US$13,000) for information leading to his recapture, according to a resolution published in the Official Gazette.
Bertulazzi belonged to the Red Brigades, a far-left organisation responsible for a series of violent attacks during the 1970s and 1980s, including the 1978 kidnapping and murder of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro.
He was identified as a senior member of the group and was linked in that capacity to the logistical planning of Moro's abduction.
Bertulazzi was arrested in Argentina in 2002 after spending more than four decades on the run, but retained refugee status until 2024.
Local media reported details of his escape from a property in the San Telmo neighbourhood of Buenos Aires, although authorities have not confirmed the accounts.
According to the reports, Bertulazzi, who was fitted with an electronic ankle tag, managed to escape by lowering himself from the balcony of his fifth-floor apartment using a harness.
Police went to the property after the monitoring system failed to register any movement from the ankle tag. They found the device there and confirmed that he had escaped, according to the reports.
Argentina's courts had revoked his refugee status, but the Federal Criminal Cassation Court had granted a request from his defence lawyers for him to remain under house arrest while awaiting extradition, taking his age into consideration.
Argentina had approved his extradition to Italy in July last year, after the Supreme Court rejected a final appeal against the move.