Carla Zambelli’s second extradition case: why Italy’s Supreme Court remitted the case back for a fresh assessment

When we looked at the first Court of Cassation judgment in Carla Zambelli’s case here on eXtradando, we noted that the second Brazilian request might turn on a very different issue: the adequacy of the assurances concerning her detention and medical care.

That is precisely what has happened, although the outcome is more nuanced than a second refusal.

In judgment no. 27350 of 21 July 2026 (available at the end of this post), the Italian Court of Cassation quashed the decision of the Court of Appeal of Rome granting Zambelli’s extradition and sent the case back for a fresh assessment on one specific point. The Court found no bar to extradition arising from the alleged political nature of the offence or concerns about the impartiality of the judge. Nor did it consider that the general conditions in the prison identified by Brazil exposed Zambelli to a real risk of inhuman or degrading treatment. The problem, instead, was that the assurances provided by the Brazilian authorities did not show, with sufficient precision, that the prison could meet Zambelli’s medical needs.

A different conviction, a separate extradition request

The first Cassation judgment, no. 21634/2026, concerned Zambelli’s ten-year sentence for the hacking of Brazil’s National Council of Justice system and the insertion of false judicial documents, including a fabricated arrest warrant against Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

The second request concerns a different conviction. Zambelli was sentenced to five years and three months’ imprisonment for unlawfully carrying a firearm and coercing a man with a weapon during an incident in São Paulo on the eve of the 2022 presidential run-off (a video is available here).

The Rome Court of Appeal had authorized extradition for that conviction, subject to several conditions. Brazil was required to ensure that Zambelli would be detained at the Penitenciária Feminina do Distrito Federal, commonly known as “Colmeia”, that she would have unrestricted access to her lawyers and to Italian diplomatic and consular representatives, and that Italy would receive periodic information about her health and detention conditions.

Zambelli challenged the decision on several grounds, including political persecution, lack of judicial impartiality, breach of the natural-judge principle, double criminality, prison conditions and the compatibility of detention with her health.

All of those arguments were rejected, except one.

Why the first judgment did not determine the second

The defence relied heavily on the first Cassation judgment. There, the Court had found a serious problem of objective impartiality because Justice Moraes combined several roles: he was affected by the alleged offence, acted as rapporteur, participated in the decision on the objection to his own position, sat on the panel that convicted Zambelli, issued the arrest warrant and played a role in the extradition process.

The second judgment confines that conclusion closely to the facts of the hacking case.

In the firearms proceedings, the rapporteur was Justice Gilmar Mendes, who also signed the arrest warrant. Justice Moraes sat on the panel and voted for conviction, but he was not a person injured by the offences and did not exercise the same pervasive combination of functions. The case had also been allocated through the ordinary electronic system. For the Court of Cassation, the structural concern that had been decisive in the first proceedings was therefore absent.

This is an important clarification. The first decision was not a general finding that the Supreme Federal Court, or any panel including Justice Moraes, could not provide a fair trial. It was a case-specific finding based on Moraes’s multiple and overlapping roles in the particular proceedings concerning the hacking of the judicial system.

The Court also rejected the complaint that trial in a single instance before the Supreme Federal Court breached the right to appeal. Its original jurisdiction over serving members of Congress has a constitutional basis, and Article 2 of Protocol No. 7 to the ECHR expressly permits an exception to the right of review where a person is tried at first instance by the highest court. That same conclusion had already been upheld by the Court of Cassation in the extradition case of Mr. Henrique Pizzolato, former Director of the Banco do Brasil who was extradited from Italy to Brazil in connection with the “Mensalão” corruption scandal (Court of Cassation, Section 6, judgment no. 10965 of 11 February 2015),

Political context is not the same as a political offence

The Court took an equally restrictive approach to the political-offence argument.

Under the Italy-Brazil Extradition Treaty, a political offence must be identified primarily by the legal interest affected. The offences in this case concerned personal freedom, individual safety and public security. They did not become political offences merely because Zambelli was a prominent opposition politician or because the events occurred during a politically charged electoral campaign.

The Court separately considered whether the proceedings concealed a persecutory or discriminatory purpose, which may also bar extradition under the Treaty. It found, however, that no sufficiently specific and proven facts supported that allegation in this case.

The double-criminality challenge also failed. The Court held that carrying a firearm outside the limits of a licence may have a counterpart in Italian law. In any event, unlawful coercion with a firearm corresponded to offences under Italian law, and Article 2(3) of the bilateral Treaty permits extradition for connected offences even where the ordinary treaty conditions are satisfied only for one of them.

The Court accepts the assurances on general prison conditions

The most significant part of the judgment concerns detention conditions in “Colmeia”.

The Court repeated the familiar rule under Article 3 of the Convention, developed in extradition cases such as Othman (Abu Qatada) v. the United Kingdom: extradition cannot proceed where substantial grounds show that the person would face a real risk of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. But general criticism of a country’s prison system is not necessarily enough. Unless the available material points to a systemic risk of the required severity, the requested person must present current, reliable and sufficiently specific evidence connecting the general situation to the prison and circumstances in which he or she will actually be detained.

In this case, the Court considered much of the defence material too general or insufficiently authoritative. Some sources concerned the Brazilian prison system as a whole, while others were press reports, political statements, blogs or material not directed specifically at the Penitenciária Feminina do Distrito Federal.

By contrast, Brazil had supplied information from several institutional sources concerning that particular prison. The material addressed capacity and occupancy, individual living space, sanitation, light and ventilation, time outside the cell, healthcare services and systems of judicial and administrative oversight. It indicated that Zambelli would have at least three square metres of personal space, excluding sanitary facilities, and cited occupancy figures below the prison’s stated capacity. Brazil also confirmed that she would be held at that facility and provided information on the semi-open regime applicable to her sentence.

The Court therefore found no real and individualised risk arising from the general conditions at “Colmeia”. It also regarded the assurances as sufficiently specific and verifiable for that purpose.

That finding is important well beyond this case. The judgment confirms that Italian courts will not infer an automatic bar to extradition from general reports on Brazilian prisons. The quality of the sources, their currency and their connection to the actual place of detention remain decisive. Specific information from the requesting State may rebut a general allegation of risk, particularly where it identifies the prison, the regime and the material conditions that will apply.

Why the health assurances were still insufficient

The decisive issue was Zambelli’s individual health. Although the court-appointed expert found her fit for detention and air travel, the assessment identified several conditions requiring continuous specialist monitoring, careful management of medication and prompt medical intervention.

The Court of Appeal had relied on Brazil’s undertaking to permit emergency hospital transfers and provide periodic health updates. The Court of Cassation held that these assurances did not establish that the necessary care would actually be available. Emergency access and diplomatic monitoring are not substitutes for continuous treatment.

It therefore remitted the case to the Court of Appeal to obtain precise information on whether the Brazilian authorities could ensure the specialist care required by Zambelli’s documented conditions.

What happens now?

The second request has not been refused. The judgment was annulled with remand, and a different section of the Rome Court of Appeal must now conduct a fresh assessment.

Brazil may still obtain extradition if it provides sufficiently detailed, reliable and verifiable information about the medical care available to Zambelli. The new decision will have to examine, in practical terms, the continuity of her treatment, access to the necessary specialists and medication, the frequency of monitoring and the arrangements for responding to deterioration or emergencies.