In a Buenos Aires apartment on an ordinary morning, a 74-year-old man who once belonged to Italy's Red Brigades slipped away from the police who were guarding him, as the city's attention had drifted toward a papal visit. Decades after the violence of the 1970s that shaped his life and the country he fled to, his escape reopens an old question: how a society reckons with the past when the people who carried it out grow old, frail, and still unwilling to face the courtroom. The search continues, and the answer will say as much about Argentina's justice system as about the man himself.
A 74-Year-Old Former Red Brigades Member Escapes House Arrest in Buenos Aires Using a Decoy and Rappelling Rope
A heating pad, animal fat and a plastic tube made a leg
Mark
Why is this story getting so much attention? He's 74 and had three strokes.
Mimi
Because of the method as much as the man. A heating pad, animal fat and a plastic tube to fake a leg, then a rappel from the fifth floor. It's a detailed, deliberate plan, and it came just as courts cleared his extradition.
Mark
And the Pope's visit factors in?
Mimi
Police attention was stretched that day, and he left during a shift change. Investigators believe he went between 6 and 8 a.m.
Luke
Careful there. The link between the papal visit and his timing comes from one unnamed official describing the investigation. Nobody has said he planned around it.
Mark
What about the bomb scare?
Mimi
The wired metal box was plugged into an outlet and brought out an explosives unit. It turned out to hold the monitor and the decoy leg.
Luke
Worth noting the route, ropes, rooftops, the gate, is also from that same official. The fence footage is confirmed, but it shows only a man falling, not the whole path.
Mark
His lawyer said he understood him.
Mimi
Rodolfo Yanzon argued prison in Italy would be too much for his health. He also said recapture would likely mean a charge of evading justice and jail pending extradition.
Luke
And we don't know where he is, whether he had help, or how he got the ropes. The reporting doesn't say.
The Pulse
- A routine police shift change turned into a silent escape when the doorbell went unanswered at a fifth-floor apartment.
- Officers were stretched thin by the Pope's visit, and the timing gave a 74-year-old fugitive a narrow window.
- A makeshift decoy of animal fat, a heating pad and a tube fooled the ankle monitor while the man rappelled out the window.
- Argentina has put a 20 million peso reward on his head as the search pushes across rooftops and empty lots.
- Courts have cleared his extradition to Italy, but his recapture now hangs on whether authorities can close the gap he opened.
In a Buenos Aires apartment on an ordinary morning, a 74-year-old man who once belonged to Italy's Red Brigades slipped away from the police who were guarding him, as the city's attention had drifted toward a papal visit. Decades after the violence of the 1970s that shaped his life and the country he fled to, his escape reopens an old question: how a society reckons with the past when the people who carried it out grow old, frail, and still unwilling to face the courtroom. The search continues, and the answer will say as much about Argentina's justice system as about the man himself.
On Tuesday morning, two police officers arrived at a fifth-floor apartment in Buenos Aires for a routine shift change and rang the doorbell. No one answered. Leonardo Bertulazzi, 74, a former Red Brigades member, was already gone, and days later authorities were still searching for him.
Bertulazzi had been living under house arrest with his wife, watched by police across the street and tethered by an ankle monitor. His lawyer said he had suffered three strokes in two years. Once the Red Brigades had been a Marxist-Leninist militant group in 1970s Italy, responsible for the kidnapping and killing of Prime Minister Aldo Moro. Argentina had first arrested Bertulazzi in 2002, granted him refugee status, and then re-arrested him in 2024 under a new government promising tough-on-crime policies. Courts this month finally cleared his extradition to Italy, where a 27-year sentence awaited.
He slipped away while much of the city's security was occupied with the papal visit. Investigators believe he left between 6 and 8 a.m. Officers found the ankle monitor wrapped around a tube coated in animal fat and fitted with a heating pad, a crude stand-in for a human leg that fooled the sensors. Climbing ropes and a harness hung at the fifth-floor window. Security footage shows a white-haired man in dark clothes tumbling over a green fence onto a cobblestone street, rising slowly, and limping away.
His lawyer said he was not surprised. "Given his age and health condition, honestly, I understand him." The government has offered a 20 million peso reward, roughly $13,000, for information leading to his recapture. Now the question is whether the search can close the distance before he gets much further away.
On Tuesday morning, two police officers arrived at a fifth-floor apartment in Buenos Aires for a routine shift change and rang the doorbell. Nobody answered. The man who was supposed to be inside, 74-year-old Leonardo Bertulazzi, was already gone, and Argentine authorities are still looking for him days later.
Bertulazzi is a former member of the Red Brigades, the far-left Italian militant group that kidnapped and killed Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978. After years of living in Argentina, he faced imminent extradition. Argentina's defense ministry says a 27-year prison sentence for terrorism-related crimes awaited him in Italy. He was under house arrest in the apartment he shared with his wife, with police posted across the street and an ankle monitor on his leg. His lawyer says he had suffered three strokes in the past two years.
The timing mattered. Much of Buenos Aires's law enforcement apparatus was occupied with the visit of Pope Leo. According to an official with knowledge of the investigation, who was not authorized to speak publicly, investigators believe Bertulazzi slipped out between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. The monitor still reported him at home. Inside the apartment, officers found a metal box of tangled wires plugged into an outlet and called an explosives disposal unit.
After the all-clear, the box turned out to hold the ankle monitor, wrapped around a plastic tube. The tube had been coated in animal fat to fool moisture sensors and stuffed with a heating pad of the kind often used for back pain. Together they approximated a human leg. At the fifth-floor window, officers found climbing ropes and a harness. The official said Bertulazzi rappelled to a second-floor terrace on a neighboring property, ran across rooftops, crossed an empty lot and climbed over a gate.
Closeted-circuit footage, shared in local media and confirmed by the official, shows a man in dark clothes tumbling over a green metal fence onto a cobblestone street. The white-haired figure hits the pavement, gets up, leans against a wall to rest, and limps around.
His lawyer, Rodolfo Yanzon, had argued that Bertulazzi's health was too poor to survive prison in Italy. He said he was not surprised by the escape. "Given his age and health condition, honestly, I understand him," he said. The defense ministry has offered a reward of 20 million pesos, about $13,000, for information leading to his recapture. Yanzon said that if caught, Bertulazzi would most likely be charged with evading justice and jailed pending extradition.
The Red Brigades were a Marxist-Leninist paramilitary organization that carried out robberies, assaults and assassinations in the 1970s in a campaign to foment revolution in Italy. Their most notorious act was the Moro kidnapping. They held him for nearly two months, then shot him and left his body in a car trunk in Rome. Argentina's national security ministry said in a 2024 statement that Bertulazzi, a high-ranking member, helped coordinate that kidnapping and others. The defense ministry says he was charged with possessing explosives in connection with his Red Brigades activities.
Argentine authorities first arrested him in 2002. He was later released, and within two years he had been granted refugee status and protection from extradition. That changed in 2024, after the election of President Javier Milei, a right-wing leader who promised tough-on-crime policies. Bertulazzi was arrested again. The security ministry's statement at the time said the arrest reflected Argentina's commitment to democracy and the rule of law and its resolve not to tolerate unpunished murderers.
After a lengthy legal battle, courts this month cleared the way for his extradition, as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had requested. Now the question is whether the reward and the search can find him before he gets further away.
Notable Quotes
Given his age and health condition, honestly, I understand him.— Rodolfo Yanzon, Bertulazzi's lawyer
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