The United States soldiers who shot and killed an Italian secret service agent escorting a freed female hostage to safety are to be cleared of all wrongdoing, it was reported on Tuesday.
Nicola Calipari, who had earlier negotiated the release of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, died shielding her on March 4 when their car was fired on at a US checkpoint on the road to Baghdad airport.
The journalist — a captive for a month — said the car was not speeding and the US soldiers failed to fire warning shots, but an official report to be published later this week will dispute her version of events, The Los Angeles Times reported.
A senior Pentagon official told the paper: ”The investigation clears the guys from doing anything wrong. They followed their rules of engagement.”
The soldiers told the investigators the car was speeding and the driver ignored repeated warning shots before they fired at the vehicle.
The driver of the car, another secret service agent and Sgrena were all wounded in the shooting, which revived simmering anger in Italy over its troop deployment in Iraq.
Calipari was hailed as a hero for throwing himself across Sgrena, and thousands turned out to pay their respects to the dead agent during a lying in state.
Italian and US officials were on Monday wrangling over the precise wording of the report into Calipari’s death but are believed to want to publish a final text they can both agree on. The Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who has been a strong US ally over Iraq, is struggling at home after members of his governing coalition suffered losses in regional elections last month.
He resigned last week to form a new government without recourse to early elections, but the administration will be vulnerable to a centre-left grouping led by former European commission president Romano Prodi, if the coalition bolstering it falls within the next year.
The kidnapping of Italian citizens has kept support for the country’s 3 000-strong troop deployment in Iraq to minimum. Aid workers Simona Pari and Simona Torretta were freed — reportedly after Berlusconi’s government paid a $1-million ransom — but Fabrizio Quattrocchi, a security guard, was murdered by his captors.
Recent opinion polls have found the government’s popularity waning over a sluggish economy and Berlusconi’s stand over the war. He pledged last month to withdraw troops from September.
Washington and Rome agree the shooting was accidental, but the Italians disputed key elements of the account. A senior military official in Washington told the newspaper there were two potential areas of disagreement: Whether the Italians were speeding and whether they had told the US military headquarters in Baghdad of their location. – Guardian Unlimited Â