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ROME, Italy (BBC News) Feb. 7, 2007 – An Italian judge has ordered a US soldier to face trial over the death of an Italian intelligence agent in a car at a checkpoint in Baghdad. Nicola Calipari, 51, was shot in March 2005 as he escorted Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena to the airport after securing her release from kidnappers.
Nicola Calipari, a highly decorated SISMI agent,
was mourned as a national hero in Italy
The soldier, Mario Lozano, will face a charge of murder in a case that put serious strain on US-Italian relations. He will probably be tried in absentia as he has been cleared in the US.
‘First step’
Spc Lozano, of the New York-based 69th Infantry Regiment, is indicted for murder and attempted murder.
A second Italian agent, who was driving the car, and Ms Sgrena were wounded.
Mr Calipari’s widow, Rosa, said: “This looks to me like the first step on a long road toward truth and justice, and I hope justice will come in the end.”
Ms Sgrena said: “We don’t want to make Mario Lozano the scapegoat, but we want to find out who was responsible and have justice.”
Nicola Calipari was an unknown Italian secret agent, close to completing another successful mission for his country. A few hours and a selfless and fatal act later, he had become a hero mourned by his entire nation.
Calipari was on the verge of delivering Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena to safety after her hostage ordeal in Iraq, when their car came under US army fire.
She recalled that he “fell on top of me to protect me, and immediately, I repeat immediately, I felt his last breath and he died on top of me”.
The coffin of Italian information officer Nicola Calipari,
draped in the Italian flag, is carried outside the Vittoriano
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier monument in Rome. (AP)
Italy ‘did deal to free hostages’
Italian aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, were held hostage for three weeks in September 2004
The Italian Red Cross treated four Iraqi insurgents to secure the release of two Italian women held hostage last year, a Red Cross official has said.
Given that the soldier that shot him may well have been special forces, this will be interesting.
There’s strong evidence, in my opinion, that this was a targeted assassination, not a random shooting in defense in a war-torn territory.
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Berlusconi Disputes US Report on Agent ¶ Stays Friendly with No Consequences
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."The thing I remember reading was that, had the Italian not moved to protect the journalist, he would still have been shot – there was a hole right behind where he had been sitting. In other words, he was targeted. The whole thing just reeks to me.
True, there were bullet holes in the back of the seat where Calipari had been sitting before covering Sgrena with his body to protect her from the gunfire.
Your comments made me remember something else I read in the Italian accounts. The driver, Carpani, another Italian intelligence agent, testified that he saw tracer bullets passing in front of him, parallel to his chest. It’s a miracle that he survived, because I think no one in the car was meant to leave Iraq alive.
Carpani also testified that the US officers at Camp Victory/Baghdad airport knew that they were returning with Giuliana Sgrena. The Americans maintain that they were not notified. Both Calipari and Carpani did not use their cell phones prior to retrieving Sgrena from where the kidnappers had left her because they feared that the US would interfere with their rescue operation. After Sgrena was in the Toyota with them, both the agents then freely used their phones.
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MILAN (Reuters) Feb. 6 – Prime Minister Romano Prodi and his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi will not be called to testify on behalf of Italy’s former spy chief Nicolo Pollari, who is accused of helping the CIA kidnap a terrorism suspect, a judge ruled.
Prosecutors want to try 26 Americans, most believed to be CIA agents, for grabbing Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street in 2003 and flying him to Egypt, where he says he was tortured.
Sing baby, Sing: The Italian edition
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
FORT LEWIS, Wash. – The judge overseeing the court martial of an Army lieutenant who refused to deploy to Iraq declared a mistrial, saying the soldier did not fully understand a document he signed admitting to elements of the charges.
Military judge Lt. Col. John Head announced the decision after 1st Lt. Ehren Watada said he never intended to admit he had a duty to go to Iraq with his fellow soldiers — one element of the crime of missing troop movement. Head set a March 12 date for a new trial and dismissed the jurors.
Last month, Watada signed a 12-page stipulation of fact in which he acknowledged he did not go to Iraq with his unit, the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, last June. He also acknowledged making public statements criticizing the Iraq war, which he believes to be illegal.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Nicola Calipari was also involved in the release of Agliana, Cupertino and Stefio, the three surviving Italian mercenaries who were kidnapped in the spring of 2004.
When the report of the US investigation of the Calipari/Sgrena shooting was released, a mistake in the internet posting allowed the names of the soldiers to be un-redacted by copying the report into a word processing program. (And we owe thanks to the two young Italians who independently discovered this flaw, which revealed more than the names of the soldiers at the blocking position.) The Roman investigators were then able to track Mario Lozano to an address in NY (Brooklyn?). However, Lozano had moved, and they were unable to locate his current residence.
The Toyota in which Calipari, Sgrena and Carpani were traveling was delivered to Rome were it underwent ballistic tests by Italian authorities and ballistic experts representing Rosa Calipari and Giuliana Sgrena. The investigation found that there were three shooters involved, contradicting the US version of one shooter, Mario Lozano.
My memory of events is cloudy here. I don’t remember if the final Italian report confirmed that one or two US shooters were involved. The ballistic experts representing Calipari’s widow and Sgrena said they found evidence of three different weapons (two of the same caliber) being fired. There were also discrepancies between the US and Italian investigations on the speed of the vehicle as it approached the temporary blocking post. This diary by rom wyo gives a good summary (as noted and promoted by the fabulous Oui).
And thank you Lisa. I did not know that Lozano was special forces.
I’m not stating that as fact – I suspect that, but i have no proof of that. If it was an assassination, then that seems more likely. But I don’t know that!
bu$hco and the neoclowns never supported the U.S. being part of the new world court (the name escapes me at the moment).
precisely because of cases like these, and BTW, these cases are not “accidents”.