He was arrested again, in 1948, during the Civil War, and exiled at Moudros on the island of Lemnos. In 1949, when the Civil War ended with the side of the national government victorious, he was transferred to the main place of exile and imprisonment for Greek Leftists, the Makronisos island. Asked repeatedly to repent and denounce his "traitorous" and "subversive" beliefs, he refused and was eventually transferred to the prison on Agios Efstratios island and then to the Hadjicostas prison in the mainland. In 1951, his mother died; Leivaditis signed the denunciation papers and was released.