Ex-hostage questioned again
11 March 2005
ROME - Italy’s president has pressed US President George W. Bush for transparency and speed in the joint probe of how US troops killed an Italian intelligence agent who had just won a hostage’s freedom in Baghdad, his office said.
Meanwhile, Italian prosecutors conducting their own investigation on Thursday questioned former Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena again in the Rome military hospital where she is recovering from a shoulder wound sustained in the March 4 shooting.
Official versions of the shooting from Rome and Washington, two long-standing allies, have differed on crucial points in the slaying of intelligence agent Nicola Calipari.
US army soldiers at a checkpoint near Baghdad airport opened fire at the car in which Sgrena, Calipari and another military secret services official were traveling, less than an hour after the journalist was released by her captors.
Hailed as a hero in Italy, Calipari died from a single shot in the head as he threw himself on top of Sgrena to save her life.
President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi sent a letter to Bush on Wednesday pressing Bush on the need for “transparency and rapidity” in an US-Italian probe of the shooting while expressing appreciation for the American leader’s “sincerity of the words of solidarity” over the tragedy.
Ciampi’s letter, which his office released Thursday, carried Wednesday’s date and referred to a letter Bush had sent the Italian earlier in the week.
Ciampi told Bush he was taking note of “your assurances that the United States will launch an exhaustive joint probe between our two countries so that the facts of this tragedy are clarified in a thorough manner.”
“The need for transparency and rapidity, which you yourself have expressed in an authoritative and sensitive way, is profoundly felt by the Italian people,” wrote Ciampi.
The Italian defense minister said Defense Minister Antonio Martino received assurances in a telephone call Thursday evening from his US counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld, that the investigation would remove “any shade of doubt and pinpoint any responsibility.”
Italy’s top officials have ruled out an ambush, but the Italian version of what led to the shooting, based in part on testimony by the surviving agent, clashes in at least three points with the account furnished by US military authorities.
In Baghdad, the US Embassy said that the troops who killed Calipari were part of extra security to protect US Ambassador John Negroponte. It was not known if Negroponte had passed through the checkpoint before the shooting.
Premier Silvio Berlusconi has said that Calipari had informed the proper authorities that he was heading to the airport with the freed hostage.
Rome Prosecutor Erminio Carmelo Amelio told Italian state TV Wednesday night that prosecutors were still waiting for US authorities to return the satellite phones Calipari had used during his mission to win Sgrena’s freedom. At least one cell phone had been returned, he said.
Sgrena has said phone calls were made en route to the airport.
Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini has said there were discrepancies on key details, with the Italians insisting the car was traveling slowly and hadn’t been warned to stop.
The US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, which controls Baghdad, has said the vehicle was speeding and refused to stop despite hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and warning shots.
Italy sent some 3,000 troops to Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein despite strong anti-war sentiment at home.
Berlusconi has urged Italians, especially journalists, not to go to Iraq, but the Italian branch of press watchdog group Reporters Without Borders said that it should be up to journalists to decide.
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