Subject: Huge: Wounded Italian hostage says US targeted her Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2005 10:39:29 -0600 Message-ID: <B14120EE5C432443B21102F7925DAD0201420615@COKE.uwec.edu> From: "Grossman, Zoltan C." <GROSSMZC@uwec.edu>
Shot hostage disputes U.S. account
Sunday, March 6, 2005 Posted: 11:13 AM EST (1613 GMT)
ROME, Italy (CNN) -- An Italian journalist shot by American forces in
Iraq after being released from a month in captivity has disputed a U.S.
account of the incident in which she was wounded and a security agent
protecting her was killed.
In an article published Sunday in her paper, Il Manifesto, Giuliana
Sgrena wrote, "Our car was driving slowly," and "the Americans fired
without motive."
The U.S. military said Sgrena's car rapidly approached a checkpoint
Friday night, and those inside ignored repeated warnings to stop. Troops
used arm signals and flashing white lights, fired warning shots in front
of the car, and shot into the engine block when the driver did not stop,
the military said in a statement.
But in an interview with Italy's La 7 Television, the 56-year-old
journalist said "there was no bright light, no signal."
And Italian magistrate Franco Ionta said Sgrena reported the incident
was not at a checkpoint, but rather the shots came from "a patrol that
shot as soon as they lit us up with a spotlight."
Rules of engagement permit coalition troops to use escalating levels of
force if they feel threatened. They can use lethal force, for example,
if a car refuses to stop for a checkpoint.
The road where the incident took place was particularly dangerous, said
CNN's Nic Robertson.
Sgrena was lightly wounded in the shoulder and underwent treatment at a
U.S. hospital in Baghdad. She is now back in Rome, getting follow-up
treatment at the city's military hospital.
In her article Sunday, headlined "My truth," Sgrena described the
harrowing ordeal of "the most dramatic day of my life" -- including the
moment that 50-year-old security agent Nicola Calipari threw himself on
her to protect her from the bullets and she heard "his last breath."
An autopsy found Calipari, an experienced negotiator who had previously
secured the release of other Italian hostages in Baghdad, was killed by
a single shot to the head and died instantly. (Profile)
His body lay in state at Rome's Vittoriano monument, and a state funeral
was planned for Monday. President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi said he would
award Calipari, a married father of two, the gold medal of valor for his
heroism.
Two other members of the Italian secret service who were in the car were
also wounded.
Sgrena wrote that after being released by her captors, she was
transferred to the custody of Calipari and the other guards. She said
Calipari "kept on talking and talking, you couldn't contain him, an
avalanche of friendly phrases and jokes. I finally felt an almost
physical consolation, warmth that I had forgotten for some time."
She was told "we were less than a kilometer" from the airport, where a
plane was waiting to take her back to Rome, "when ... I only remember
fire. At that point, a rain of fire and bullets hit us, shutting up
forever the cheerful voices of a few minutes earlier.
"The driver started yelling that we were Italians. 'We are Italians, we
are Italians.' Nicola Calipari threw himself on me to protect me and
immediately, I repeat, immediately I heard his last breath as he was
dying on me. I must have felt physical pain, I didn't know why."
She then thought of something her captors had told her: "The Americans
don't want you to go back."
The left-leaning Il Manifesto even accused U.S. forces on Saturday of
"assassinating" Calipari.
Sgrena's partner, Pierre Scolari, also blamed the shooting on the U.S.
government, suggesting the incident was intentional.
"I hope the Italian government does something because either this was an
ambush, as I think, or we are dealing with imbeciles or terrorized kids
who shoot at anyone," he said, according to Reuters.
Rome protests
U.S. President George W. Bush called Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi Friday night to express his regrets about the shootings and
pledged a full investigation.
The Iraq war has been extremely unpopular in Italy from the beginning,
and Friday's shooting triggered new protests. Thousands packed streets
in Rome carrying signs condemning the war and the Bush administration.
But officials with Italy's center right government said the shooting
would not affect support for the country's efforts to help secure
postwar Iraq.
Sgrena and her newspaper fiercely oppose the war. She wrote that she
told her kidnappers that repeatedly, but they refused to let her go.
She said she told her captors they could not ask the Italian government
to withdraw the 3,000 Italian troops from Iraq -- "their political
go-between could not be the government but the Italian people, who were
and are against the war."
Italian media suggest a ransom was paid for her release but the
government, which has paid ransoms in the past, declined to comment.
Sgrena was kidnapped February 4 outside a Baghdad mosque. Her release
Friday came one month later to the day.
CNN's Alessio Vinci and Elise Labott contributed to this report.
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http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/2373/
Italian reporter's companion tells press
Americans hoped she'd be killed
Written by Mark Jensen
The web site of TF1, France's most popular television
network, reported Saturday that as Giuliani Sgrena
returned to Rome Saturday morning, her companion told
the press that "the American military didn't want her
to get out alive" because she was in possession of
information embarrassing to the United States.[1] --
The common joy at her liberation quickly degenerated
into a political confrontation in Italy, whose
population has never been in favor of the government's
support for military intervention in Iraq. -- An
earlier report from Liberation (Paris) evoked the
"confusion" in Rome Friday night as news of the tragedy
reached Italians.[2] ...
1.
[Translated from the web site of TF1]
World
'THE AMERICANS DIDN'T WANT GIULIANA TO GET OUT'
** Pier Scolari, the companion of the Italian reporter
liberated Friday in Iraq, says that American soldiers
had been informed about that the car heading for the
Baghdad airport was passing through. Giuliana Sgrena
was wounded and the leader of the team of Italian
special forces accompanying her was killed. Italy is
demanding an explanation from the United States **
TF1 March 5, 2005
http://news.tf1.fr/news/monde/0,,3205999,00.html
After relief mixed with sadness comes polemic. Pier
Scolari, Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena's companion,
said Saturday that "the American military didn't want
her to get out alive" because she had information
embarrassing to the United States. When she was taken
hostage last Feb. 4, the reporter was preparing an
article on refugees from Fallujah who had taken shelter
in a Baghdad mosque following American bombing of the
Sunni bastion.
"RAIN OF FIRE"
Giuliana Sgrena, 56, was freed Friday evening after a
month of captivity. But on the road to the Baghdad
airport, her car was fired upon by American soldiers.
The journalist was wounded, and Nicola Calipari, 51,
the head of the team of Italian special forces
accompanying her, was killed. According to Pier
Scolari, "The Americans and the Italians had been
advised the car was coming through. They were 700
meters from the airport, which means they'd gone
through all the checkpoints."
A "rain of fire" hit the car "at the very moment when I
was talking to Nicola Calipari," she said by telephone
to the TV station RaiNews24 from the Celio military
hospital, were she was taken after her return to Rome
at morning's end. "We weren't going very fast, given
the circumstances. . . . The firing continued. The
driver couldn't even explain that we were Italian,"
added the journalist. "The whole fusillade was heard
live by the Council presidency, which was on the phone
with one of the members of the special forces. Then the
American soldiers confiscated and shut off the cell
phones," added Pier Scolari.
ITALIAN-AMERICAN TENSIONS
Carlo Ciampi, the head of state, demanded an
explanation from Washington. "Like all Italians, we are
waiting for clarification from the United States on
this painful tragedy," he announced Saturday morning.
It was clear that Carlo Ciampi found inadequate the
regrets expressed Friday evening by President George W.
Bush in a five-minute telephone conversation with
Silvio Berlusconi.
"The president has every reason to demand an
explanation, because the United States is responsible
for the death of Nicola Calipari. The only thing to do
now is to withdraw our troops from Iraq," said Fausto
Berinotti, the secretary general of the Party for
Communist Refoundation. The incident, attributed to
"destiny" by Gianfranco Fini, the head of Italian
diplomacy, has degenerated into a new confrontation
over the Italian military presence in Iraq between the
left opposition and the right, which is in power. And
it brought back to the surface anti-American
resentment, which has often been expressed since
President Bush's decision to intervene militarily in
Iraq.
"THEY NEVER MISTREATED ME"
Wounded, tired, but free, the Italian ex-hostage was
taken, as soon as she returned to Rome Saturday
morning, to a military hospital for treatment. Her
shoulder in a sling, the journalist walked down the
ramp leaning on two people, one of whom was her
companion Pier Scolari, who had gone to retrieve her in
a Falcon 900 lent by the Italian government. Many
colleagues, political figures like Silvio Berlusconi,
the president of the Italian Council, and the chiefs of
the Italian special forces also went to Ciampino on
Saturday. "They never mistreated me," she said of her
captors to colleagues from the newspaper Il Manifesto,
who had come to greet her. "The hardest moment was when
I saw the person who had saved me die in my arms," she
said to Pier Scolari, her companion.
2.
[Translated from Liberation (Paris)]
Top Stories
Hostages
GIULIANA SGRENA LIBERATED UNDER FIRE By Eric Jozsef
Liberation (Paris) March 5, 2005
http://www.liberation.com/page.php?Article=280211
ROME -- Released on Friday, exactly one month after her
kidnapping on Feb. 4 in the center of Baghdad, the
daily Il Manifesto's special correspondent Giuliana
Sgrena was wounded by American fire several hours after
her liberation. The chief of the Italian special forces
team in Iraq, Nicola Calipari, who was with her, was
killed. As the Italian soldiers were on their way from
the Iraqi capital to the airport, where a military
plane was waiting to take her straight back to Rome, a
barrage of American soldiers opened fire on the convoy.
In addition to the officer killed, another Italian
soldier was wounded, and Giuliana Sgrena was shot in
the shoulder. She was taken to the emergency room of an
American hospital in Baghdad.
In Italy Friday evening, the greatest confusion reigned
concerning these events, in particular concerning the
hail of bullets. Toward the end of the afternoon, Al
Jazeera television announced the freeing of Giuliana
Sgrena, of whom no news had been received since Feb.
16, when a videocassette was broadcast in which,
visibly distraught, she asked several times, in tears,
for the Italian contingent to be withdrawn from Iraq.
Since then, the mysterious "Mujahideen Without
Borders," an organization not heretofore known, had
given no further sign. But the government pursued
negotiations on the sidelines. Friday evening, in a
videorecording recorded by her kidnappers and broadcast
by Al Jazeera, Giuliana Sgrena, in a black dress before
a basket of fruit, said only that her captors "had
kidnapped her because they were determined to free
their land of occupation," and specifying that she had
been well treated.
EUPHORIA
A few minutes after the broadcast of the news of the
liberation by Al Jazeera, Il Manifesto, informed by the
council presidency, confirmed the news of her
liberation, as did the head of state, Carlo Azeglio
Ciampi, who, just last Wednesday, had issued a solemn
appeal: "Free Giuliana and Florence Aubenas, their
liberation would be a good thing for everyone and above
all for the future of Iraq."
Throughout Italy, which since Feb. 4 had intensely
mobilized to demand that the hostages be liberated, in
particular by means of a gigantic demonstration on Feb.
19 in the streets of Rome, the news caused a genuine
moment of euphoria, with Italy's political class
unanimously hailing the denouement. As a sign of
celebration, Rome's mayor, Walter Veltroni, announced
that the Coliseum would be lit all night.
Simultaneously, Gabriele Polo, editor-in-chief of Il
Manifesto, was received by Council President Silvio
Berlusconi.
-- Translated by Mark K. Jensen