Ocalan arrived in Rome from Moscow on November 12 and was arrested at the airport by the Italian police. There he applied for political asylum. The Turkish government, which has pursued him on charges of high treason and terrorist activities, demanded his immediate extradition. They were supported in their demand by the US government, which put pressure on Rome to extradite the PKK leader to Ankara. However, it soon became clear that neither the Italian judiciary nor the government were prepared to accede to such a demand.
Italian law forbids extradition to a country that retains the death penalty.
And the pledge by the Turkish justice minister to immediately do away with the death penalty did not change the minds of the Italian judges. After a few days a court quashed the Turkish arrest warrant and set Ocalan free, on condition that he not leave Rome. There was widespread political opposition in Italy to the extradition of Ocalan to Turkey. The majority of Italian parties, both left and right, regard the Kurds as an oppressed people and Ocalan as a political leader, not as a terrorist. In October the exile parliament of the Kurds, which is dominated by the PKK, convened in Italy with Italian parliamentary deputies as observers.