New Delhi, July 17 -- MANAGUA - Nicaragua announced Thursday it was cutting diplomatic ties with Italy after Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani publicly demanded the extradition of Alessio Casimirri, a former Red Brigades militant who participated in the 1978 kidnapping and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro and has lived freely in Managua for more than four decades.

The break was abrupt. Nicaragua's Foreign Ministry issued no extended diplomatic statement, no period of consultations, no gradual cooling. It simply notified Rome that relations were finished, a choice that reflected both the depth of Daniel Ortega's contempt for Western governments and the particular friction that Casimirri's presence has caused since Italy be...