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Mar. 5th, 2005 02:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silversolitaireThe US doesn't need terrorists to kill hostages! They can do it just fine by themselves!
Short version: An Italian reporter was held hostage in Iraq. Italy negotiated and freed her, she was handed over to three agents and driven to an airport. On the way there the US army shot at their jeep because it supposedly failed to stop at a check-point, wounding the hostage and killing an Italian agent in the process! Words fail me.
And what is it the US publicizes?
"She's been freed. She's with US forces."
More on that.
Italy Seeks U.S. Answers Over Hostage Shoot-Out
Fri Mar 4, 2005 04:58 PM ET
By Roberto Landucci and Robin Pomeroy
ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi demanded explanations from the United States on Friday after American forces in Iraq wounded freed hostage Giuliana Sgrena and shot dead a secret service agent.
Berlusconi, a close ally of President Bush, said he was stunned by the shooting and had summoned the U.S. ambassador to explain how American troops had fired on Sgrena as the Italian reporter was being driven to Baghdad airport.
"We were turned to stone when the officials told us about it on the telephone," Berlusconi told a news conference. "I immediately summoned the U.S. ambassador ... who will have to clarify the behavior of the U.S. military for such a serious incident, which someone will have to take responsibility for."
Sgrena, a reporter for the Rome-based Communist daily Il Manifesto, was seized in the Iraqi capital on Feb. 4. She was last seen in a video released on Feb 16. pleading for her life and urging U.S.-led forces to quit Iraq.
She was handed over to three Italian agents on Friday who drove her toward the airport, but the car came under U.S. fire at a checkpoint, Berlusconi said.
"The agent, Nicola Calipari covered Sgrena with his body, he was hit by a bullet which unfortunately was fatal," he said. All three other passengers were wounded. Sgrena was treated for a shrapnel wound in her shoulder at a U.S. military hospital.
Bush said he regretted the loss of life in the shooting. The Defense Department said multinational forces had fired at the car when it approached a checkpoint at high speed, later discovering who its occupants were.
JOY OVERSHADOWED
Berlusconi said he personally knew Calipari who had worked on previous hostage release cases in Iraq and that the agent's wife worked in his Palazzo Chigi office.
The man, a former policeman, was also known to Sgrena's partner Pier Scolari who he met in the days running up to her release.
"He was an extraordinary man, a man who gave me the certainty that Giuliana would come home. When I learned he had been killed by American soldiers ... I felt a pain which for a moment overshadowed the joy of (Giuliana's) liberation."
Italy's mixed feelings over the botched release of 57-year-old Sgrena are in stark contrast to the joy which greeted the return of two aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, hostages released last September.
Like the "two Simonas," Sgrena was always against the presence of foreign troops in Iraq.
Italy has some 3,000 troops in Iraq, the fourth largest foreign contingent after U.S., British and South Korean forces.
While Sgrena was freed, there was no word on the fate of French journalist Florence Aubenas, who was seized in Baghdad on Jan. 5. Aubenas made a desperate appeal for help in a video tape released by Iraqi insurgents on Tuesday.
(Additional reporting by Giuseppe Fonte and Gavin Jones)
Short version: An Italian reporter was held hostage in Iraq. Italy negotiated and freed her, she was handed over to three agents and driven to an airport. On the way there the US army shot at their jeep because it supposedly failed to stop at a check-point, wounding the hostage and killing an Italian agent in the process! Words fail me.
And what is it the US publicizes?
"She's been freed. She's with US forces."
More on that.
Italy Seeks U.S. Answers Over Hostage Shoot-Out
Fri Mar 4, 2005 04:58 PM ET
By Roberto Landucci and Robin Pomeroy
ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi demanded explanations from the United States on Friday after American forces in Iraq wounded freed hostage Giuliana Sgrena and shot dead a secret service agent.
Berlusconi, a close ally of President Bush, said he was stunned by the shooting and had summoned the U.S. ambassador to explain how American troops had fired on Sgrena as the Italian reporter was being driven to Baghdad airport.
"We were turned to stone when the officials told us about it on the telephone," Berlusconi told a news conference. "I immediately summoned the U.S. ambassador ... who will have to clarify the behavior of the U.S. military for such a serious incident, which someone will have to take responsibility for."
Sgrena, a reporter for the Rome-based Communist daily Il Manifesto, was seized in the Iraqi capital on Feb. 4. She was last seen in a video released on Feb 16. pleading for her life and urging U.S.-led forces to quit Iraq.
She was handed over to three Italian agents on Friday who drove her toward the airport, but the car came under U.S. fire at a checkpoint, Berlusconi said.
"The agent, Nicola Calipari covered Sgrena with his body, he was hit by a bullet which unfortunately was fatal," he said. All three other passengers were wounded. Sgrena was treated for a shrapnel wound in her shoulder at a U.S. military hospital.
Bush said he regretted the loss of life in the shooting. The Defense Department said multinational forces had fired at the car when it approached a checkpoint at high speed, later discovering who its occupants were.
JOY OVERSHADOWED
Berlusconi said he personally knew Calipari who had worked on previous hostage release cases in Iraq and that the agent's wife worked in his Palazzo Chigi office.
The man, a former policeman, was also known to Sgrena's partner Pier Scolari who he met in the days running up to her release.
"He was an extraordinary man, a man who gave me the certainty that Giuliana would come home. When I learned he had been killed by American soldiers ... I felt a pain which for a moment overshadowed the joy of (Giuliana's) liberation."
Italy's mixed feelings over the botched release of 57-year-old Sgrena are in stark contrast to the joy which greeted the return of two aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, hostages released last September.
Like the "two Simonas," Sgrena was always against the presence of foreign troops in Iraq.
Italy has some 3,000 troops in Iraq, the fourth largest foreign contingent after U.S., British and South Korean forces.
While Sgrena was freed, there was no word on the fate of French journalist Florence Aubenas, who was seized in Baghdad on Jan. 5. Aubenas made a desperate appeal for help in a video tape released by Iraqi insurgents on Tuesday.
(Additional reporting by Giuseppe Fonte and Gavin Jones)
