BRASILIA: Italian ex-militant Cesare Battisti ended an 11-day hunger strike as he anticipated President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's verdict on his extradition to Italy.

"Mr Battisti confidently awaits President Lula's decision. In a show of trust, he called off his hunger strike on Tuesday. We've got reports that he has no health issues," Battisti's lawyer Renata Saraiva told AFP.

Found guilty in absentia for murders dating from the 1970s, Battisti, 54, was granted refugee status by Lula's government earlier this year.

Brazil's Supreme Court last week ruled his status unconstitutional and granted Italy's request for his extradition.

However, the court ruling gives Lula the last word, and the signs are the president is inclined to veto the extradition -- he recently said he would abide by the Supreme Court ruling if it was "binding," which it is not.

Both Lula and Justice Minister Tarso Genro publicly pleaded with Battisti to call off his jail cell hunger strike.

Italy considers Battisti a "terrorist" for his membership in the Armed Proletariat for Communism, a radical and armed left-wing group that murdered several people in the 1970s.

He was found guilty in absentia of killing a prison guard, a special investigator of terrorist groups, a butcher and a jeweler targeted by the group in that period and sentenced to life in prison.

Battisti has repeatedly said he is innocent of the murder charges against him.

He launched a successful career as a crime writer after renouncing his militant past, while fleeing into exile in France after escaping Italian prison in 1981.

When France changed laws protecting him and other repentant former foreign militants, he went to Rio de Janeiro in 2004 on a false passport.

He was arrested there three years later at Italy's request, and has been in detention in Brasilia since.