Posted on 03/05/2005 4:42:38 AM PST by Truth666
Lots of information pouring in:
13:04 Sgrena contradicts the US: the car wasn't speeding
13:11 americans knew we were coming -they were 700 meters away from the airport, which meant they passed already all the controls
13:19 shooting took place while italians had the italian government (Palazzo Chigi ) in the mobile phones
Or, perhaps, they were bringing more than just the journalist through--someone or something that they didn't want us to see or know about. Maybe part of the ransom was getting that "something" through the checkpoint and onto a flight out of Iraq.
Also is this area covered under the curfew that was put in place prior to Operation Phantom Fury and which has been extended and still in effect?
How many checkpoints are there on the way to the airport? Surely they went through others prior to the last one. Could they have gone through previous checkpoints following the rules and then picked up someone or something prior to the last checkpoint?
Yup, she already is.
Sgrena told colleagues from Il Manifesto, who met her plane, that her captors "never treated me badly," ANSA reported.
Which makes me wonder about this picture:
She was sobbing, looked pretty distressed and in fear for her life in that video. Either she is lying now when she claims to have been treated well or she was lying then when she was acting so distressed.
Either way, she's a liar so I'm not sure if we should believe anything she says about this checkpoint incident.
As in Alexander? LOL
OK,so my spelling sucks:-)
A frame grab taken from a video tape released by insurgents February 16, 2005, shows Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist kidnapped in Iraq, begging for her life and appealing for foreign troops to withdraw from Iraq. 'I beg you, put an end to the occupation. I beg the Italian government and the Italian people to put pressure on the government to pull out,' she said on the undated tape. (Reuters - Handout)
Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who was kidnapped February 4 in Baghdad. Sgrena, 56, was shown in tears begging Rome to pull its troops from the country. 'Withdraw from Iraq , this people must not suffer any longer,' she pleaded in the video footage, which lasted several minutes.(AFP/File/Vincenzo Pinto)
Italian Former Hostage Returns to Rome
By MARIA SANMINIATELLI, Associated Press Writer
ROME - Draped in a blanket and apparently hooked up to an intravenous drip, former hostage Giuliana Sgrena returned home from Iraq on Saturday, hours after American troops fired on the car taking her to Baghdad's airport, wounding her. The Italian intelligence officer who negotiated her freedom was hit by the gunfire and died in her arms.
President Bush promised a full investigation into the shooting. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi greeted Sgrena after she was carried off her plane at Rome's Ciampino Airport following her release from a month of captivity. Surrounded by relatives and military police, Sgrena, a 56-year-old journalist with the newspaper Il Manifesto, was taken in an ambulance to a military clinic for an operation on her collarbone.
A blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, and she appeared to be hooked up to an intravenous drip.
Her brother, Ivan Sgrena, told reporters she was very happy to be back in Italy but was "very sorry and sad" about the death of intelligence officer Nicola Calipari, who Berlusconi said was killed when he threw himself over Sgrena to protect her from U.S. fire.
From the hospital, Giuliana Sgrena told Rai News 24 by telephone that "we thought the danger was over after my rescue."
"And instead, suddenly there was this shooting. We were hit by a spray of fire," she told the television network. "I was talking to Nicola ... when he leaned over me, probably to defend me, and then he slumped over. That was a truly terrible thing."
Pier Scolari, the journalist's boyfriend, said she told him: "The most difficult moment was when I saw the person who had saved me die in my arms," according to the ANSA news agency. Calipari was to be awarded a posthumous medal of valor, officials said.
Gabriele Polo, her editor, said Berlusconi told him: "It was a terrible night, we will remember it for all our lives."
"She's been through a trial, but she's alive. Finally, we've gotten to see her," said her father, Franco.
Scolari said Sgrena was doing "relatively well."
She 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.
Sgrena told colleagues from Il Manifesto, who met her plane, that her captors "never treated me badly," ANSA reported.
The shooting came as a blow to Berlusconi, who has kept 3,000 troops in Iraq despite widespread public opposition in Italy to the U.S.-led war. Sgrena's left-leaning newspaper vigorously opposed the conflict.
One of Italy's communist parties organized a protest Saturday outside the U.S. consulate in Milan. About 50 people waved rainbow peace flags and handed out leaflets that read, "Shame on you, Bush."
Italy's foreign minister said he hoped Calipari's death would not spark an anti-American backlash. "That would be the most underhanded way of marking the memory of this hero," Gianfranco Fini told Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Friday's shooting occurred shortly after Sgrena was released from a month in captivity. She left Iraq after being discharged from a U.S. military hospital in Baghdad.
The U.S. military said the car Sgrena was riding in after her release was speeding as it approached a coalition checkpoint in western Baghdad on its way to the airport. 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," the military said.
U.S. troops took Sgrena to an American military hospital in Iraq, where shrapnel was removed from her left shoulder. The shrapnel removed from Sgrena's shoulder may have been a fragment of the fire that killed Calipari, he said.
News of the shooting drew criticism Friday from Berlusconi's political foes, who were eager to attack the government for its staunch support of the war.
"Another victim of an absurd war," Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, leader of the Green Party, told the Apcom news agency.
Berlusconi summoned the U.S. ambassador to Rome, Mel Sembler, who met with the premier for about an hour.
"The United States will continue to provide all necessary assistance," Sembler said in a statement, expressing condolences to Calipari's family and wishing the wounded a quick recovery. "And we are working with our Italian allies as we fully investigate the circumstances of this tragedy."
Bush called Berlusconi and expressed his regret in a five-minute conversation, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Friday night. Bush then assured Berlusconi the shooting would be "fully investigated," he said.
Pope John Paul II sent two messages of condolences, one to Berlusconi and another to Calipari's family, the Vatican said.
The pope said he was "saddened at the tragic death" of Calipari, and called him a "faithful and heroic servant of the state, who, in carrying out the delicate mission that had been given to him, didn't hesitate to sacrifice his life."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1356652/posts
No, they set it up as a way to launder money to the terrorists via a dubious "ransom." It would not look good for her to simply hand over a million Euro to them, but paying a "ransom" means she can maintain deniability and the terrorists can claim they are being magnanimous by not beheading her and pocketing the money instead. That was the set up part. The checkpoint was probably not thought through. She probably instructed her driver not to stop for the American soldiers that she has nothing but contempt for. Like most all journalists there, she thinks she is above them and doesn't have to obey the rules like everyone else.
Because it was simply a ruse to pass large amounts of money to them via a dubious "ransom."
Weren't the men with her, some of them anyway, Italian secret police or intelligence agents, though? They know the drill.
Yup, except they overplayed their hand on the urgency part of the plan.
That's a very plausible scenario and the best one I've read so far.
A good brave man lost, so some broad could get a story.
Thanks for the ping, Kat.
Good thinking.
Makes sense to me.
Not to speak ill of the dead, but is it possible that he was of the same mind politically as the "journalist" and therefore the arrogant attitude toward the US checkpoint? I cannot believe unbiased professional agents would have charged a US checkpoint. Their bad.
Personally, I think they got the result they were after.
Yeah the whole situation is strange.
But do you know the saddest thing? Communists will take it as the flag of their anti-american pacifism...
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