The former Italian hostage who saw her rescuer shot dead at a United States checkpoint in Baghdad said on Sunday they might have been targeted because of US objections to Italy’s policy of negotiating with kidnappers.
Giuliana Sgrena, a reporter for the far-left daily Il Manifesto, was wounded as bullets ripped into the car taking her to Baghdad airport to be flown out of Iraq.
In a vivid account, written for her newspaper, she described how Nicola Calipari, the international operations chief of Italy’s military intelligence service, was shot in the head as he tried to shield her.
”I heard his last breath as he died on top of me,” she wrote.
Amid a growing sense of anger, disbelief and sorrow in Italy, about 10 000 people filed through Rome’s Victor Emmanuel monument on Sunday to pay respects to Calipari, whose body lay in state. He will receive a state funeral on Monday.
Sgrena flew home late on Saturday in the plane carrying Calipari’s coffin.
Italy’s president, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, was at the airport and, in an effort to express the mixed sorrow and admiration Italians feel for the dead intelligence chief, he stood for a full two minutes with his hands on the coffin before allowing it to proceed.
In her account, Sgrena said she recalled her captors’ last words: ”Be careful because the Americans don’t want you to return.”
The Italian government has virtually admitted a ransom was paid, with the Agriculture Minister in Silvio Berlusconi’s right-wing government, Giovanni Alemanno, saying it was ”very likely”.
He added it was ”generally preferable to pay a financial price than the price of a human life or a political price consisting of [submitting to] blackmail by pulling out troops”.
An Iraqi MP told Belgian state television on Saturday that a $1-million ransom was paid. But Italian media reports spoke of a payment of up to $8-million.
In an interview broadcast by Sky Italia, Sgrena said: ”The United States does not approve of this policy and so they try to stop it in any way possible.”
But the Communications Minister, Maurizio Gasparri, urged her to to show restraint: ”I understand the emotion of these hours, but those who have been under stress in the past few weeks should pull themselves together and avoid talking nonsense.”
The incident has strained relations between the Bush administration and one of its strongest allies in Europe, with Italian ministers openly expressing disbelief at Washington’s account.
The US military said the car approached the checkpoint on Friday night at speed and soldiers used hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and warning shots to try to get it to stop.
However, according to the daily Corriere della Sera, the Italian intelligence officer who drove the car and who survived the attack insisted they were travelling at just 40 to 50km an hour.
He was quoted as saying: ”All of a sudden, a searchlight went on. Immediately afterwards, the shots began. The fire lasted for at least 10 seconds.”
The team that fetched Sgrena had been in direct contact by telephone with the prime minister’s office in Rome, where Berlusconi, senior intelligence officers and the editor of Sgrena’s newspaper were all celebrating her release with champagne. Corriere della Sera said that, after screaming at the Americans to stop, the intelligence officer called up again. ”The Americans have shot at us,” he shouted. ”Nicola is dead. I have a machine gun pointing at me.”
Gasparri said the incident would make no difference to Italy’s support for efforts to secure postwar Iraq. ”The military mission must carry on because it consolidates democracy and liberty in Iraq,” he said.
Italian prosecutors are working on the assumption they are investigating a murder.
White House counsellor Dan Bartlett, talking on CNN on Sunday, called the shooting ”a horrific accident” and pledged a full investigation. ”In a situation where there is a live combat zone … people are making split-second decisions, and it’s critically important that we get the facts before we make judgements,” he said. – Guardian Unlimited Â