Posted on 03/05/2005 8:54:10 AM PST by Lessismore
ROME - The companion of freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena on Saturday leveled serious accusations at US troops who fired at her convoy as it was nearing Baghdad airport, saying the shooting had been deliberate.
"The Americans and Italians knew about (her) car coming," Pier Scolari said on leaving Rome's Celio military hospital where Sgrena is to undergo surgery following her return home.
"They were 700 meters (yards) from the airport, which means that they had passed all checkpoints."
The shooting late Friday was witnessed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's office which was on the phone with one of the secret service agents, said Scolari. "Then the US military silenced the cellphones," he charged.
"Giuliana had information, and the US military did not want her to survive," he added.
When Sgrena was kidnapped on February 4 she was writing an article on refugees from Fallujah seeking shelter at a Baghdad mosque after US forces bombed the former Sunni rebel stronghold.
Sgrena told RaiNews24 television Saturday a "hail of bullets" rained down on the car taking her to safety at Baghdad airport, along with three secret service agents, killing one of them.
"I was speaking to (agent) Nicola Calipari (...) when he leant on me, probably to protect me, and then collapsed and I realized he was dead," said Sgrena, who was being questioned on Saturday by two Italian magistrates.
"They continued shooting and the driver couldn't even explain that we were Italians. It was really horrible," she added.
Sgrena, who was hospitalized with serious wounds to her left shoulder and lung after arriving back in Rome Saturday before noon, said she was "exhausted because of what happened above all in the last 24 hours".
"After all the risks I have been running I can say that I'm fine," she said.
"I thought that after I was handed over to the Italians danger was over, but then this shooting broke out and we were hit by a hail of bullets."
The chief editor of Sgrena's left-wing newspaper Il Manifesto Gabriele Polo meanwhile branded Calipari's death a "murder".
"He was hit in the head," he said.
Calipari will be given a state funeral Monday.
I think we need to transport all the Italians back home and out of Iraq, and just "GITTER DONE!"
All this crap from them is exhausting............
Excellent!
A checkpoint is a checkpoint. Regardless of how many
you have passed, you don't speed up, refuse to stop and
barrel onward in the face of warning shots.
Too bad the surviving occupants were allowed to leave
Iraq...they should all be held for ''further discussions.''
I think you could be on to something. Without more information (which if you are right) we may never find out, due to security issues.
yup. I bet he/she/it had a windshield wiper on the inside of the wind shield so the car noises the driver makes while driving could be cleared.
Here's an article in Der Spiegel that postulates three factors were to blame, 1) darkness, 2) bad communications, and 3) the troops had only been in-country for mere weeks and were inexperienced and scared. However, a number of reports, including the BBC are now reporting that indeed they may have been stopped not at a checkpoint but by a patrol. The BBC article states that the car was fired upon for three minutes.
Inzwischen werden immer mehr Details des tragischen Vorfalls bekannt: Laut "Repubblica" hat die italienische Geheimpolizei Sismi bei Sgrenas Freilassung mit zwei Teams gearbeitet. In Bagdad hielt der später erschossene Calipari Kontakt mit den Entführern. In einem arabischen Nachbarstaat, Kuweit oder Saudi-Arabien, stand das zweite Team mit Lösegeld bereit. Gestern Vormittag kam die Nachricht, dass Giuliana Sgrena aus ihrem Versteck in der Nähe von Ramadi, 200 Kilometer westlich von Bagdad, in die Hauptstadt gebracht worden sei. Nach etlichen Verzögerungen habe der Austausch dann erst nachmittags gegen 17 Uhr in der Nähe einer Moschee stattgefunden. Weil es bereits dunkelte, entschied Calipari, sofort zum Flughafen zu fahren.
Es ist bislang nicht bekannt, ob dem Wagen der Geheimdienstleute ein zweites Sicherheitsfahrzeug zur Seite gestellt war. Ebenso ist unklar, ob die Italiener das Centcom-Hauptquartier der Amerikaner von ihrer Ankunft am Flughafen informierten oder ob diese Nachricht von den Amerikanern rechtzeitig an die Posten weitergegeben wurde. Die US-Soldaten am Checkpoint vor dem Flughafen waren erst kurz zuvor im Irak eingetroffen. Es waren Neulinge, denen noch ein Angriff eine Woche zuvor an der gleichen Stelle in den Knochen steckte.
So scheinen drei unglückliche Faktoren zusammengetroffen zu sein: Dunkelheit, Kommunikationsfehler und die Unerfahrenheit der Kontrollposten. Der Checkpoint befand sich etwa einen Kilometer vor dem Flughafengelände nach einer Kurve.
Der Weg zum Flughafen in Bagdad gilt als die gefährlichste Straße im Irak. Fast täglich kommt es hier zu Zwischenfällen und Angriffen durch Heckenschützen, die auf Autofahrer und alliierte Soldaten zielen. Die US-Soldaten an den Kontrollpunkten an dieser Straße sind dementsprechend nervös.
I think these mice should be ignored completely. Their tiny audience of jack-in-the-box leftist clowns will applaud them, but the rest of the world will continue to brush them off like dandruff.
Well, not by me :) The Italians attempting to hide something and/or someone is the only explanation that makes any sense.
Wish I could read in German.
At the risk of ending all discussion with a simple explanation - the reason is they were Italian and (by nature) very excitable.
In other words - nucking futs!
Well, that's an interesting spin by BBC, but not necessarily accurate. BBC has been so far off-base before, I wouldn't put that much trust in this one just yet.
BTW, welcome to Free Republic.
Posting a box of Kleenex seems to me pretty calloused given that an Italian intelligence agent is *dead*, leaving behind a wife and two children.
LOL. Maybe they were crammed into a VW bug?
Fiat
The Beeb, huh? I have two words: Andrew Gilligan.
Several foreign news sources describe this as a "convoy", which would imply multiple vehicles. If so, were they traveling with other military vehicles, other civilian vehicles, other vehicles driven by Italian Secret Service?
It appears that this was not a regular checkpoint, and that they had passed those. If so, on who's initiative was it set up?
It appears that the Italian Secret Service thought that thier "convoy" was expected, and that they were not required to slow down and stop. Was that true? If so, why didn't this ad hoc checkpoint get the word?
It is unlikely that the reporter was in the front seat. Most likely she and the secret service agent who was killed were in the back seat. So although the US forces presumably aimed for the engine, they managed to kill someone in the back seat who was protecting her, while only lightly wounding the other two agents in the front seat?
This smells like either a major screwup or a deliberate attack under cover of a screwup.
Haven't been in a Fiat for a couple of decades. Are the engines in the rear?
Well, more to the point,
Italy has been our friend,
and Berlusconi
has had a hard time
for his support. However
this shooting happened
it makes it tougher
for Berlusconi to keep
Italy with us.
I have no idea what really happened but ignorance won't stop me now!
1) Like all accidents, this probably had several things happen at the same time. The Italians panicked when our vehicle showed up. Maybe they thought it was terrorists attacking.
2) Our guys are pumped up because of all the VBIED attacks (I would be). They see a car that won't stop, so they stop it.
3) The cellphone nonsense may be related to jamming. I've read that we jam cell frequencies near our patrols to prevent remotely detonated IEDs.
I totally agree with the other posters. If we *wanted* to kill the woman, she would be in a body bag. Any claims otherwise are [how do Italians write b*llshit?].
"I think these mice should be ignored completely. Their tiny audience of jack-in-the-box leftist clowns will applaud them, but the rest of the world will continue to brush them off like dandruff."
I don't think you understand how seriously this incident is being debated in the European press. Right now there are crowds gathering outside the U.S. embassy in Rome, and not just the communists. The best strategy is for us to start an immediate and open investigation into how exactly this incident happened. It will likely turn out that a bunch of mistakes were made on both sides, as always happens in the fog of war. Some of these mistakes might be embarassing for us (as well as for the Italians) but it will at least help defuse a potentially explosive political situation in Italy.
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