Posted on 03/06/2005 6:37:52 AM PST by prairiebreeze
ROME (AP) -- The freed Italian hostage wounded by American troops at a checkpoint in Baghdad shortly after her release said in an article Sunday that her Iraqi captors had warned her U.S. forces "might intervene."
Giuliana Sgrena, who writes for the communist newspaper Il Manifesto, described how she was wounded and Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari was killed as she was celebrating her freedom on the way to the airport. The shooting Friday has fueled anti-American sentiment in a country where people are deeply opposed to U.S. policy in Iraq.
"I remember only fire," she said in her article. "At that point a rain of fire and bullets came at us, forever silencing the happy voices from a few minutes earlier."
Sgrena said the driver began shouting that they were Italian, then "Nicola Calipari dove on top of me to protect me and immediately, and I mean immediately, I felt his last breath as he died on me."
Suddenly, she said, she remembered her captors' warning her "to be careful because the Americans don't want you to return."
The U.S. military said the Americans used hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and fired warning shots to get the car to stop. But in an interview Saturday with Italian La 7 TV, Sgrena said "there was no bright light, no signal." She said the car was traveling at "regular speed."
Italian military officials said two other agents were wounded, but U.S. officials said it was only one. The agent who was killed, Calipari, had led negotiations for the journalist's release.
Sgrena returned to Rome on Saturday morning, looking haggard and with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She walked unsteadily and was hooked up to an intravenous drip following surgery to remove shrapnel from her shoulder.
She was taken to a Rome military hospital, where she later met with Calipari's wife, the Italian news agency Apcom said.
In her article, Sgrena wrote that her captors warned her as she was about to be released not to signal her presence to anyone, because "the Americans might intervene."
It was the happiest and also the most dangerous moment," Sgrena wrote. "If we had run into someone, meaning American troops, there would have been an exchange of fire, and my captors were ready and they would have responded."
Sgrena said her captors then blindfolded her and drove her to a location, where they made her get out of the car.
That's when she first heard Calipari's voice, she said.
"Don't worry, you're free," he told her.
Neither Italian nor U.S. officials gave details about how Sgrena managed to gain her freedom after a month in the hands of Iraqi insurgents.
An Iraqi lawmaker, Youdaam Youssef Kanna, told Belgian state TV Saturday evening that he had "nonofficial" information a $1 million ransom was paid for Sgrena's release, Apcom reported from Brussels.
The shooting came as a new blow to the center-right government of Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a strong ally of President Bush, who has assured him the shooting would be investigated. Tens of thousands of Italians regularly demonstrated against the Iraq war, and the Italian left - including Sgrena's newspaper - vigorously opposed the conflict.
Berlusconi, President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Il Manifesto director Gabriele Polo joined Calipari's family at Rome's Ciampino Airport late Saturday before the agent's body was flown in shortly before midnight.
The coffin with Calipari's body was carried out of the military plane wrapped in an Italian flag and blessed by a military priest and the agent's brother, a priest who serves on a Vatican advisory body. Calipari's wife, mother and two children were also present.
The coffin was loaded onto a hearse and taken to the coroner's office in Rome. An autopsy began on Sunday, according to news reports. The body was expected to lie in state at Rome's Vittoriano monument, and a state funeral was planned for Monday.
Ciampi said he would award Calipari with the gold medal of valor for his heroism.
"What happened yesterday in Baghdad was a homicide," Polo told Apcom.
"The Americans must be firmly reminded to respect human and civil rules," the ANSA news agency quoted Mirko Tremaglia, minister for Italians abroad, as saying.
Sgrena was abducted Feb. 4 by gunmen who blocked her car outside Baghdad University.
Actually it's the Italian journalists who write for Communist Manifesto's who need to be reminded to utilize the sense that God gave a goat when in a war zone. Pffft!
Well, which is it?
Yes, and the terrorists are such noble, upstanding people there is no reason to doubt anything they say.
:eyeroll:
"It was the happiest and also the most dangerous moment," Sgrena wrote. "If we had run into someone, meaning American troops, there would have been an exchange of fire, and my captors were ready and they would have responded."
Yes. The most dangerous moments were if they had come into contact with American troops. More dangerous than, perhaps, any time spent in the "custody" of these beheading beasts? Does anyone find that curious?
Can anyone provide any links to articles this woman has written? I know being a communist does not have the stigma in Europe that it does in the USA, but I have heard she is a virulent anti-American, and has made no bones about it in her writing.
In any case, it sounds like the idiots paid a ransom. Great. That is 1.5 million dollars that will be used to purchase things like cell phones that can be used to make bombs to kill our men. Perhaps we should have interdicted them before the ransom was paid, and just taken the ransom money and the "hostage".
Yeah. There we go.
:eyeroll:
LOL. And even if Sgrena was dim enough to really believe that, why in Heaven's name would the security guys who were with her?
I wish I'd have said that......It could not be expressed in a better light...therefor I will not add a comment...!!!!!!
Set up?
$1 million ransom for a communist buys a lot of ordnance and funds terrorist operations to kill Americans. Stick it up your bum, Italy!
Take the ransom...leave the hostage...or..... Take the canoles...leave the gun....
She didn't want to be questioned by the pro-American Iraqis.
Wonder why.
She didn't want to be questioned by the pro-American Iraqis.
Wonder why.
Suddenly, she said, she remembered her captors' warning her ''to be careful because the Americans don't want you to return.''
Stockholm Syndrome, willing 'victim' or collaborator. From what I've heard of her political ideology, I'm tending to think it's one or both of the latter two.
I don't believe one word of this woman's story.
I'm not so sure she was a hostage.
I don't believe her friend died with his breath on her.
I don't believe the captors told her the Americans don't want you back.
I think she's a liar and perhaps a friend of Eason; she's certainly doing everything she can to bolster his outrageous charges.
Italy paid a ransom and then the terrorists cautioned the commie reporterette to be careful in her attempt to run the check point and make the American military look like killers.
I guess that I am supposed to start crying now...
Nope, can't seem to manage it...oh well.
this is a commie bl*w job.
i don't believe any of it.
She's a commie liar IMO. It was a setup attempt that either went bad or went as planned.
LOL
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