Italians bade an emotional farewell on Monday to the senior intelligence officer killed by United States troops in Iraq last week as officials in Rome and Washington tried to dampen smouldering resentment over his death.
Nicola Calipari was given a state funeral, his body carried to Santa Maria degli Angeli church in Rome past a guard of honour formed of units from the police and all five of Italy’s armed services.
An estimated 20 000 people in the square outside broke into applause as the coffin reappeared, draped with the national flag of red, green and white.
Gianni Letta, the junior minister responsible for the intelligence services, appealed to the congregation, which included the Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, to ”leave controversy outside and close ranks around Nicola’s family”.
But Calipari’s boss, the head of the military intelligence service, Nicolo Pollari, reflected the feelings of many when he spoke in his funeral oration of a ”sense of rage” over the way that his foreign operations chief had met his end. Calipari died soon after securing the release of an Italian hostage, the journalist Giuliana Sgrena. Officials in Rome have indicated that a ransom was paid.
On Sunday, Sgrena said that she did not discount the possibility that the car carrying them to Baghdad airport had been targeted by the Americans because of their opposition to negotiating with kidnappers.
The White House rejected Sgrena’s claims. ”I think it’s absurd to make any such suggestion that our men and women in uniform deliberately targeted innocent civil ians. ”That’s just absurd,” said spokesperson Scott McClellan.
However the Third Infantry Division, whose troops include those that fired on the Italians’ car last Friday, came under investigation in April last year for opening fire on carloads of Iraqi women and children at checkpoints, according to US army documents obtained by The Guardian.
”The order was given to shoot anything that moves, but it wasn’t meant to be taken literally,” one soldier told the US army investigator.
One soldier described shooting women and children in cars ”if they didn’t respond to the signs, the presence of troops or warning shots”.
Human rights organisations have lodged repeated complaints against US forces in Iraq, saying that they have failed to protect civilians at checkpoints, and that the rules of engagement are too lax.
On Monday, Bulgaria said that US troops had probably shot dead one of its soldiers. The Bulgarian Defence Minister, Nikolai Svinarov, said an investigation into the death of the Bulgarian soldier in southern Iraq on Friday showed that he had probably been accidentally killed by American troops.
”Someone started shooting at our patrol from the west, and in the same direction, 150m away, there was a unit from the US army,” he told a news conference. ”The result gives us enough grounds to believe the death of rifleman Gurdi Gurdev was caused by friendly fire.”
Anger and doubt about the incident involving the Italian intelligence officer have reignited controversy over the unfailing support provided by Berlusconi’s government for America’s involvement in Iraq.
Italian newspapers on Monday quoted the prime minister as saying that the alliance with the US was ”not up for debate”. But Calipari’s lying-in-state provided an opportunity for Italians not only to honour a fallen hero, but also to protest at a deeply unpopular policy. By the time the dead agent’s coffin was loaded into a hearse, some 100 000 people had filed past it in a day and night when the weather was unrelentingly hostile.
Calipari spent much of his career in the police and many of his former colleagues and associates had turned out to pay their last respects, some wiping away tears from under their shiny peaked caps.
Among the priests officiating was Calipari’s brother, Maurizio. The rest of the family sat in the front row.
Prosecutors in Rome, who have opened an inquiry into Calipari’s death, announced on Monday night that Italian officials in Iraq had taken possession of the car in which he was travelling with Sgrena when he was killed.
They said that it would be flown back to Italy for a forensic examination. Their investigation continues to be classified as a murder inquiry. – Guardian Unlimited Â