(Reuters)
BAGHDAD -- Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was freed by her captors on Friday but U.S. forces in Iraq mistakenly opened fire on the convoy taking her to safety, wounding her and killing an Italian secret service agent.
talian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, one of President Bush's staunchest supporters in Iraq, immediately summoned the American ambassador, demanding explanations and declaring someone had to take responsibility.
U.S. forces at a checkpoint shot dead the agent and wounded Sgrena in the shoulder while she was being driven to Baghdad airport after being freed and handed over to three Italian secret service officers, Berlusconi told a news conference.
"We were turned to stone when the officials told us about it on the telephone," Berlusconi said.
"The agent, Nicola Calipari covered Sgrena with his body, he was hit by a bullet which unfortunately was fatal," he said. All three other passengers were wounded. Sgrena was treated for a shrapnel wound in her shoulder at a U.S. military hospital.
The 57-year-old Sgrena was kidnapped on Feb. 4. Insurgents later released a video of her sobbing and wringing her hands as she pleaded for Italian troops to leave Iraq.
In Washington, the White House said it regretted the shooting. The U.S. military said American soldiers tried to warn occupants of the vehicle -- flashing lights and firing warning shots -- as it sped toward a checkpoint, then fired into its engine block when it did not stop.
"This news which should have been a moment of celebration, has been ruined by this firefight," said Gabriele Polo, editor of Sgrena's Il Manifesto paper, a Rome-based Communist daily. He deplored "completely senseless and mad" events in Iraq.
Berlusconi said he personally knew Calipari who had worked on previous hostage release cases in Iraq and that the agent's wife worked in his Palazzo Chigi office.
The man, a former policeman, was also known to Sgrena's partner Pier Scolari who he met in the days running up to her release.
"He was an extraordinary man, a man who gave me the certainty that Giuliana would come home. When I learned he had been killed by American soldiers ... I felt a pain which for a moment overshadowed the joy of (Giuliana's) liberation."
New Video
In new video aired on Al Jazeera on Friday, Sgrena was shown wearing a black dress and sitting in front of a table with a plate of fruit. Jazeera said that on the tape, Sgrena thanked her captors for treating her well.
Sgrena was one of two female Western journalists abducted in Baghdad this year. Florence Aubenas of France's Liberation was seized along with her Iraqi driver on Jan. 5.
Aubenas appeared in a videotape distributed by her captors this week, looking distraught and exhausted.
More than 150 foreigners, including several Western journalists, have been seized by insurgents over the past year. Most have been freed but many have been killed -- sometimes in beheadings that were filmed and posted on the Internet.
The kidnappings have highlighted the lawlessness gripping large areas of Iraq where insurgents mount frequent attacks, crime is rife and Iraqi forces have little control.
Last year, Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni was seized south of Baghdad and later killed by his captors.
Six other Italians have been kidnapped in Iraq. Four private security guards were kidnapped in April and one was later killed, and in September two female Italian aid workers were snatched in Baghdad before being released three weeks later.
Italy's mixed feelings over the botched release of Sgrena were in stark contrast to the joy which greeted the return of those two aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta.
Like the "two Simonas," Sgrena was always against the presence of foreign troops in Iraq.
Italy has some 3,000 troops in Iraq, the fourth largest foreign contingent after U.S., British and South Korean forces.
Fresh Attacks
The hostage crises have fueled criticism in Italy of the government's backing for the war in Iraq -- criticism likely to be further stoked by Friday's incident.
Insurgents trying to overthrow Iraq's U.S.-backed government mounted fresh attacks on Friday. In southern Iraq, guerrillas shot dead a Bulgarian soldier, officials in Sofia said.
In Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, a car bomb killed one civilian, and in the mainly Shi'ite southern Iraq town of Budair, the local police chief was assassinated.
In the restive northern city of Mosul, a car bomb exploded near a U.S. military convoy. Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq issued an Internet statement claiming responsibility for the blast.
In another Internet statement on Friday, the al Qaeda group in Iraq led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said a string of suicide attacks in recent days disproved assertions by the Iraqi government that the network was crumbling.
On Monday, a suicide bomb for which the group claimed responsibility killed 125 people south of Baghdad -- the deadliest single insurgent attack since Saddam Hussein fell.
BAGHDAD -- Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was freed by her captors on Friday but U.S. forces in Iraq mistakenly opened fire on the convoy taking her to safety, wounding her and killing an Italian secret service agent.
talian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, one of President Bush's staunchest supporters in Iraq, immediately summoned the American ambassador, demanding explanations and declaring someone had to take responsibility.
U.S. forces at a checkpoint shot dead the agent and wounded Sgrena in the shoulder while she was being driven to Baghdad airport after being freed and handed over to three Italian secret service officers, Berlusconi told a news conference.
"We were turned to stone when the officials told us about it on the telephone," Berlusconi said.
"The agent, Nicola Calipari covered Sgrena with his body, he was hit by a bullet which unfortunately was fatal," he said. All three other passengers were wounded. Sgrena was treated for a shrapnel wound in her shoulder at a U.S. military hospital.
The 57-year-old Sgrena was kidnapped on Feb. 4. Insurgents later released a video of her sobbing and wringing her hands as she pleaded for Italian troops to leave Iraq.
In Washington, the White House said it regretted the shooting. The U.S. military said American soldiers tried to warn occupants of the vehicle -- flashing lights and firing warning shots -- as it sped toward a checkpoint, then fired into its engine block when it did not stop.
"This news which should have been a moment of celebration, has been ruined by this firefight," said Gabriele Polo, editor of Sgrena's Il Manifesto paper, a Rome-based Communist daily. He deplored "completely senseless and mad" events in Iraq.
Berlusconi said he personally knew Calipari who had worked on previous hostage release cases in Iraq and that the agent's wife worked in his Palazzo Chigi office.
The man, a former policeman, was also known to Sgrena's partner Pier Scolari who he met in the days running up to her release.
"He was an extraordinary man, a man who gave me the certainty that Giuliana would come home. When I learned he had been killed by American soldiers ... I felt a pain which for a moment overshadowed the joy of (Giuliana's) liberation."
New Video
In new video aired on Al Jazeera on Friday, Sgrena was shown wearing a black dress and sitting in front of a table with a plate of fruit. Jazeera said that on the tape, Sgrena thanked her captors for treating her well.
Sgrena was one of two female Western journalists abducted in Baghdad this year. Florence Aubenas of France's Liberation was seized along with her Iraqi driver on Jan. 5.
Aubenas appeared in a videotape distributed by her captors this week, looking distraught and exhausted.
More than 150 foreigners, including several Western journalists, have been seized by insurgents over the past year. Most have been freed but many have been killed -- sometimes in beheadings that were filmed and posted on the Internet.
The kidnappings have highlighted the lawlessness gripping large areas of Iraq where insurgents mount frequent attacks, crime is rife and Iraqi forces have little control.
Last year, Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni was seized south of Baghdad and later killed by his captors.
Six other Italians have been kidnapped in Iraq. Four private security guards were kidnapped in April and one was later killed, and in September two female Italian aid workers were snatched in Baghdad before being released three weeks later.
Italy's mixed feelings over the botched release of Sgrena were in stark contrast to the joy which greeted the return of those two aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta.
Like the "two Simonas," Sgrena was always against the presence of foreign troops in Iraq.
Italy has some 3,000 troops in Iraq, the fourth largest foreign contingent after U.S., British and South Korean forces.
Fresh Attacks
The hostage crises have fueled criticism in Italy of the government's backing for the war in Iraq -- criticism likely to be further stoked by Friday's incident.
Insurgents trying to overthrow Iraq's U.S.-backed government mounted fresh attacks on Friday. In southern Iraq, guerrillas shot dead a Bulgarian soldier, officials in Sofia said.
In Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, a car bomb killed one civilian, and in the mainly Shi'ite southern Iraq town of Budair, the local police chief was assassinated.
In the restive northern city of Mosul, a car bomb exploded near a U.S. military convoy. Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq issued an Internet statement claiming responsibility for the blast.
In another Internet statement on Friday, the al Qaeda group in Iraq led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said a string of suicide attacks in recent days disproved assertions by the Iraqi government that the network was crumbling.
On Monday, a suicide bomb for which the group claimed responsibility killed 125 people south of Baghdad -- the deadliest single insurgent attack since Saddam Hussein fell.
