How Does a 74-Year-Old in Argentina Escape House Arrest on the Fifth Floor?

The answer involves a heating pad, a bomb scare and animal fats. Police are still searching for an Italian man facing extradition on terrorism charges from the 1970s. Time was running out for Leonardo Bertulazzi. After decades of safe harbor in Argentina, Mr. Bertulazzi, a former member of a far-left militant group that kidnapped and murdered Italy’s prime minister in 1978, faced imminent extradition back to Italy.

In Europe, a 27-year prison sentence for terrorism-related crimes awaited Mr. Bertulazzi, according to Argentina’s defense ministry. Mr. Bertulazzi, 74, was placed in house arrest. The police were stationed across the street from the 5th-floor apartment he shared with his wife in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital.

He’d had three strokes in the last two years, his lawyer said, and he was forced to wear an ankle monitor. On Tuesday, while much of the Buenos Aires’ law enforcement apparatus was focused on the visit by Pope Leo , two police officers checked on Mr. Bertulazzi during a routine shift change, according to an official with knowledge of an investigation into Mr.