New role for Bruni

2008-10-13 22:12

Paris - France's First Lady has become personally involved in the case of a former leftist terrorist from Italy, visiting the ailing woman in hospital.

It was an unusual political foray for France's First Lady - a former fashion model known more for her folk music and designer wardrobe than her involvement in political issues.

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy visited former Red Brigades member Marina Petrella in a hospital last week to tell her she would not be sent to Italy to serve her life sentence for complicity in the 1991 murder of an Italian police chief, daily Liberation reported on Monday.

"We could not let this woman die," Bruni-Sarkozy was quoted by the paper as saying. "The situation had become intolerable, dangerous."

Petrella, 54, suffers from severe depression and has been on a hunger strike.

She is formerly a member of the militant left-wing Red Brigades that plagued Italy with attacks in the 1970s and 1980s.

'Humanitarian decision'

President Nicholas Sarkozy said he asked his wife of eight months to visit Petrella because she was in danger of dying, and because he wanted the ex-militant to end the hunger strike.

He said he told Italian authorities of his "humanitarian decision" not to extradite her.

Bruni-Sarkozy is of Italian origin, from a wealthy Turin family of industrialists.

She told Liberation on Sunday that she was "happy" about her husband's decision, adding that her sister - actress Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi - had frequently raised Petrella's case with the president over the past two months.

- AP