Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Iraq

Iraq hostage freed, then fired on

After kidnappers released an Italian journalist, U.S. troops mistakenly opened fire on her car, injuring her and killing an Italian security agent.

BAGHDAD - U.S. troops opened fire Friday evening on a car rushing Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who was just freed by kidnappers, to the Baghdad airport, wounding her and killing an Italian security agent who had helped negotiate her release, officials said.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, one of Washington's most loyal allies in the war in Iraq, said he had summoned the U.S. ambassador to Italy, Mel Sembler, for an explanation after hearing the news, which he said turned him "to stone."

"The behavior of the American soldiers, in such a serious incident, must be explained," Berlusconi said as Italians who had begun to celebrate Sgrena's release were stunned at the turn of events. "Someone must take responsibility."

President Bush expressed regret and promised to investigate, the White House said. Sembler was called in Friday evening to meet with Berlusconi.

The U.S. military said the car was speeding as it approached a coalition checkpoint in western Baghdad in darkness at 8:55 p.m. It said soldiers shot into the engine block only after trying to warn the driver to stop by "hand and arm signals, flashing white lights, and firing warning shots." There was no explanation of how bullets fired into the engine block hit the passengers.

The airport road where the shooting occurred is a dangerous throughway that has been the scene of numerous ambushes and car bombings. In addition, U.S. troops have frequently fired on cars approaching checkpoints around Iraq, for fear they might be suicide bombers.

The Americans said two people were wounded, but Berlusconi said there were three - Sgrena and two intelligence officers. One officer was in serious condition with an apparent lung injury, according to the Apcom news agency in Italy.

The intelligence agent was killed when he threw himself over Sgrena to protect her from U.S. fire, Apcom quoted Gabriele Polo, the editor of the leftist Italian newspaper Il Manifesto, as saying. Sgrena works for Il Manifesto.

Berlusconi identified the slain intelligence officer as Nicola Calipari and said he had been at the forefront of negotiations with the kidnappers. The prime minister said Calipari had been involved in the release of other Italian hostages in Iraq in the past.

U.S. troops took Sgrena to an American military hospital, where shrapnel was removed from her left shoulder. Apcom said Sgrena was fit to travel and would return to Rome today.

Sgrena, 56, was abducted Feb. 4 by gunmen who blocked her car outside Baghdad University. Last month, she was shown in a video pleading for her life and demanding that all foreign troops - including Italian forces - leave Iraq.

Berlusconi said he had been celebrating Sgrena's release when he took a phone call from an agent who informed them of the shooting.

"It's a shame that the joy we all felt was turned into tragedy," Berlusconi said.

Berlusconi has kept 3,000 troops in Iraq despite opposition in Italy. The shooting could set off new protests in Italy, where tens of thousands have regularly turned out on the streets to protest the Iraq war. Sgrena's newspaper has been an opponent of the war.

"It's incredible that a man who was busying himself with the difficult task of saving a life was killed by those who say they are in Iraq to safeguard the life of civilians," said Piero Fassino, leader of the Democratic Party of the Left.

Bush called Berlusconi and, in a five-minute conversation, expressed his regret about the incident, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday night.

"The president assured Prime Minister Berlusconi it would be fully investigated," McClellan said. "I think he appreciated that."

McClellan declined to comment on what the incident might mean for participation by Italy or other countries in the coalition.

"It's premature to get ahead of the investigation," McClellan said.

Iraqis have reported numerous incidents where confusion at U.S. checkpoints has led to U.S. soldiers killing civilians.

In a 2003 friendly-fire incident involving Italians, American soldiers in northern Iraq shot at a car carrying the Italian official heading up U.S. efforts to recover Iraq's looted antiquities. Pietro Cordone, the top Italian diplomat in Iraq, was unhurt, but his Iraqi translator was killed.

Cordone, also the senior adviser for cultural affairs of the U.S. provisional authority, was traveling on the road between Mosul and Tikrit when his car was fired on at a U.S. roadblock, according to an Italian Foreign Ministry official.

Before word of the shooting reached Rome in the early evening, news had already begun to filter out about Sgrena's release.

Government officials began to express gratitude to Gianni Letta, Berlusconi's top aide. Letta has coordinated past efforts to release Italian hostages.

The reporter's father was so overwhelmed by the news that he needed assistance from a doctor, ANSA said. "She's free! She's free!" Franco Sgrena shouted after receiving the news by telephone.

Television cameras caught images of joyful hugging at Il Manifesto's Rome office and applause at the annual assembly of the Communist Refoundation Party. Polo and Pier Scaroli, Sgrena's live-in partner, traveled to Chigi Palace to get details of Sgrena's expected arrival.

While they were meeting, Berlusconi received a call from Baghdad telling him Sgrena had been wounded and Calipari killed.

Polo criticized the Americans. "An Italian agent has been killed by an American bullet - a tragic demonstration that everything that's happening in Iraq is completely senseless and mad," he said. "Nicola Calipari is the person we must thank most for Giuliana's release. Unfortunately, he was killed by American bullets."

The shooting is considered unlikely to change Berlusconi's attitude toward Iraq. Berlusconi has consistently supported Bush administration policy there and provided 2,700 paramilitary police to patrol the southern city of Nassariyah. He has weathered controversy over the deaths of Italian soldiers and two other Italian kidnap victims and resisted repeated opposition calls for a troop pullout.

Italian officials have indicated ransoms were paid in the past, but it was unclear if one was paid for Sgrena or if she might have been freed in a rescue operation.

Four U.S. soldiers were killed Friday west of the capital in Anbar province, where American troops launched a massive sweep two weeks ago to root out insurgents, the military said.

The soldiers, assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, were killed "while conducting security and stability operations."

VIDEOS BRING NO CHARGES: Videos from Iraq compiled by a Florida National Guardsman and called "Ramadi Madness" appeared to show one soldier kicking a wounded, handcuffed prisoner and another striking a detainee with a rifle butt, yet Army investigators found no cause to charge anyone with abuse, according to Army documents released Friday.

The videos were described in 1,200 pages of documents released by the Army in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, which is seeking information on prisoner abuse in Iraq. Army officials said the documents summarized 13 investigations, none of which resulted in abuse charges.

A number were closed due to insufficient evidence.

Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the ACLU, called the Army documents "further evidence that abuse of detainees was widespread in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Information from the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times was used in this report.

[Last modified March 5, 2005, 00:42:15]