U-S soldier may be charged with murdering Italian agent in Iraq.

[deminks]

http://www.kbcitv.com/x51828.xml?URL=http://10.56.1.26/APWIREFEED/d8f6nlu85.xml&NewsSection=InternationalHeadlines

The Associated Press

ROME Italian media report that a U-S soldier is going to be charged with murder in the death of an Italian secret service agent in Iraq.

U-S gunfire killed Nicola Calipari near a checkpoint on last March.

The agent was heading to Baghdad airport in a car with an Italian journalist who had just been released after being held hostage by militants.

Italian prosecutors have been investigating the killing. Media reports out of Rome say prosecutors plan to charge the soldier with murdering Calipari -- and with attempting to murder the driver and the journalist in the car.

Additional info at this link:

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/01/18/military/17_47_591_17_06.txt

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. So once again a low level grunt

takes the blame. I wonder who gave him the order to shoot?

[0007]

3. John Negroponte

[Sal Minella]

7. It's worse than that. The troops were turning back vehicles attempting

to enter the the airport highway ("Route Irish") because Negroponte's convoy was expected to come down that road (his helicopter flight had been cancelled because of iffy weather). But the weather cleared, Negroponte and company made the trip by helicopter, and nobody bothered to tell the guys guarding the road entrances they could stand down (they stood their posts for a LONG long time, in an area where troops had frequently come under attack), because the radio communication failed and the brass couldn't figure out how to use VOIP, which was the back-up communication.

The whole Army report was printed in La Repubblica -- the army released the report with sections blacked out, but the blacking-out disappeared when the document was copied and pasted. Names, times, positions of vehicles, waiting forever for the caravan of Negroponte's vehicles that would never come....it's all in the army report (very dense reading). http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8713.htm (copied from the Army report):

I was appointed by LTG John R. Vines, Commander, Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) on 8 March 2005 to investigate, per U.S. Army Regulation 15-6 (Annex 1B), all the facts and circumstances surrounding the incident at a Traffic Control Point (TCP) in Baghdad, Iraq on 4 March 2005 that resulted in the death of Mr. Nicola Calipari and the wounding of Ms. Giuliana Sgrena and Mr. Andrea Carpani.

And some poor soldier is going to be standing trial for this???? Because his boss didn't bother to let the guys know Negroponte had already made the "Route Irish" trip in a helicopter.....the wrong people are going on trial, here. Again.

Somebody also might have thought to warn Sgrena's rescue party that Negroponte was wafting around the area and there might be traffic blockades.

[Dhalgren]

15. That's not really the problem.

The problem is that this is SOP for our troops in Iraq. Any vehicle that strikes you the wrong way, "light 'em up!" If these had been innocent Iraqis in the car this would have never made the light of day. US soldiers gun down Iraqis every day with no fanfare. These poor slobs just murdered the wrong folks, that's all. If the soldiers had known that the car was filled with Italians (whites/westerners/christians) they would never have fired their weapons, but because they thought it was just another carload of Iraqis (coloreds/A-rabs/muslims) they thought it would be ok to shoot them down. That's the problem...

[phusion]

22. Nice alibi...

"because the radio communication failed and the brass couldn't figure out how to use VOIP, which was the back-up communication."

Yea, that's a convenient alibi. The brass wanted this to happen. They wanted to kill Sgrena.

[stop the bleeding]

17. Good article here on this,,,,,

SISMI oops, I mean P2 sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BOH20050925&articleId=1003

"My husband's homicide," she adds, "cannot be allowed to become yet another of Italy's 'mysteries."

Mrs. Calipari is referring to countless unsolved political crimes—from the murder of Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 to the massacre of 80 people and wounding of 200 in the Bologna train station bombing in 1980—that point to collusion between the Italian secret services, trained and funded by the CIA, and Anglo-American-dominated NATO intelligence, which sought to reverse the electoral progress of Italy toward a coalition government of national unity that would welcome the powerful and then respected Italian Communist Party as a partner.

In spite of the Italian Communist Party's official separation from Moscow and recognition of Italy's participation in NATO, the idea of a multi-party sovereignty for Italy was anathema to the George H.W. Bush's CIA (the senior Bush was head of the CIA in 1976 for one year), to then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and to then Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, General Alexander Haig.

The terrorist crimes of the Italian "years of lead," carried out by neo-fascist or Mafia elements, were subsequently blamed on the left to discredit it in the eyes of the electorate and were part of the infamous "strategy of tension," born and bred within the intelligence institutions of the Anglo-American allied command of post-war occupied Europe to stem, subvert, and thwart the advance of socialist and democratic forces in Europe (to look up this intelligence saga, research Stay-Behind and Gladio, the names of secret subversive operations for Europe under the eventual umbrella of NATO).

[stop the bleeding]

19. The soldier's name is Mario Lozano - the one who killed Calipari

http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_international&Number=294262053&page=&view=&sb=&o=

The Rome prosecutor's office identified the marine as Mario Lozano .

Intelligence officer Nicola Calipari was killed on March 4 when US troops manning a temporary roadblock opened fire on a car carrying him, another agent and a released hostage to Baghdad airport .

A joint investigation by Italian and US military experts failed to reach a shared conclusion, with the American members clearing the soldiers of all responsibility and the Italians blaming the US's organisation of the roadblock .

Italian investigators were able to identify Lozano thanks to a youth in Bologna who was able to uncover the name which had been blacked out in the joint report .

American authorities have never replied to Italian investigators' requests for the names of the soldiers manning the roadblock. The Toyota Corolla in which Calipari and the others two were travelling came under 'friendly fire' from a temporary roadblock manned by ten US soldiers on their first day of service .

Ballistic evidence gathered from the car by Italian experts indicated that only one weapon had been fired. According to the American investigation, the car was travelling at high speed, about 80kmh, and the driver panicked .

(According a Pentagon source cited by CBS News, a US satellite filmed the incident and thanks to its images the speed was calculated at 96kph. However, this information was not included in the Pentagon report.) The US military claimed the driver failed to stop or slow down when soldiers flashed a spotlight, shone a green laser onto the car's windscreen and fired warning shots .

<snip> response/post to blog

My American friend recently went to Rome. His local contacts instructed him not to speak at the restaurant and ordered for him. If they knew he was an American they would have spit in the food.

There is much for Italy to hate about Americans. If Operation Gladio weren't enough, we have the murder of an apparently decent man, and the attempted murder of the journalist Sgrena.

[Nabia2004]

23. Giuliana Sgrena interview - link

Giuliana Sgrena Blasts U.S. Cover Up, Calls for U.S. and Italy to Leave Iraq In her most extended interview to date in the U.S., Italian journalist Giuliana...
Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

http://www.democracynow.org/search.pl?tid=25


Check the Democracy Now archives.

There are numerous news articles and interviews with Giuliana Sgrena.
http://www.democracynow.org

[stop the bleeding]

24. cool - I love DNow and Amy Goodman - saw her speak last

year with Tom Robbins and others at her exception to the Rulers tour.

[Nabia2004]

28. Giuliana Sgrena interview - link FIXED

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/27/1350235&mode=thread&tid=25

Has transcript and video.

[Nabia2004]

21. It was an assassination, shot after passing the checkpoint

Democracy Now had comprehensive coverage of the incident when it happened. The reporter's car was allowed to pass the so called checkpoint, did so at a cautious conservative speed, "hundreds" of rounds of gunfire entered from the rear of the car hitting the passengers in the back seat.

EDITED to add:

Giuliana Sgrena Blasts U.S. Cover Up, Calls for U.S. and Italy to Leave Iraq In her most extended interview to date in the U.S., Italian journalist Giuliana...
Wednesday, April 27th, 2005

http://www.democracynow.org/search.pl?tid=25


Check the Democracy Now archives.

There are numerous news articles and interviews with Giuliana Sgrena.
http://www.democracynow.org

[savemefromdumbya]

26. Donald rumsfeld probably?

[Wilms]

2. I hope this gets interesting.

[wordpix2]

4. that airport road is still not secure thanks to "stay the course" * See:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/

It is so dangerous on that road, who knows what happened?

[Oversea Visitor]

5. Sigh

This all turning nice American youth into something xxxxxxx
How can they go on after all this.
Iraq is bad for the soul of US
So much bad karma

[leesa]

6. I would like to know if Calipari was on to the forged Niger papers

I wonder if he had information he was 'offed' for.

[Sal Minella]

8. The soldiers were on a routine traffic blockade mission -- they had

no idea the Sgrena rescue had taken place, or that the Sgrena vehicle was going to try to get to the airport. Worse, nobody had told the Sgrena rescue crew that there might be travel problems with Negroponte in the area.

[wordpix2]

9. this is a huge problem with an outsourced military-the privateers don't

know what's going on militarily and the military doesn't know what problems the profiteers will cause next

[Ben Ceremos]

11. Original accounts

indicated communication between the Italian Intelligence services and the American Command. The theft of the cell phones from the car and the refusal to allow an independent analysis of the shooting and the car indicate that there was someting afoot here, quite nefarious. Ms. Sgrena is claimed to have been carrying evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Fallujah...but now that's old news making way for the new Bush horror. Won't someone put your nation out of it's misery?

[Andromeda]

13. Our nation doesn't need being put out of its,

misery, thank you very much. Don't know what country you're from but you'd better make sure your country has a shatterproof layer of glass before you throw those stones.

Just to give you the benefit of the doubt, I know you probably wouldn't have said what you said if we didn't have Bush smelling up the White House.

[Ben Ceremos]

18. HALLO!

I would have thought it obvious that your misery is named Bush. :banghead:

[Sal Minella]

16. Sgrena is the kind of journalist the U.S. doesn't have any more.

"Ms. Sgrena is claimed to have been carrying evidence of the use of chemical weapons in Fallujah..."

She had been investigating the use of white phosphorus on civilians during the seige of Fallujah. I wonder if we ever would have found out the United States used white phosphorus on civilians if Sgrena's stories hadn't been printed.

I ventured into one right-wing site at the time and her findings were completely discounted because "She writes for a Communist newspaper." Well, capitalist newspapers would hardly be interested in this story, would they. Unless white phosphorus futures were looking particularly good.

I was deep into conspiracy theory about this at first (animosity against her writing, the agents' success in retrieving her, general animosity toward Italians) but now I think it was just SNAFU -- our guys had no idea a hostage rescue had taken place. And nobody bothered to tell our guys to stand down, that the VIP convoy wouldn't be coming because the VIP had made the trip by air already. And our guys were tense, waiting and waiting, because Americans were always being attacked in that area, near an overpass.

After poring over the official report for an hour or so, I abandoned conspiracy theory entirely and arrived at SNAFU.

[bunny planet]

20. I've always wondered whether or not Calipari wasn't the real intended

target not Sgrena

[Judi Lynn]

25. I remember reading she said the agent leaned across her just as

he was shot, or she would have been killed. It left no doubt in my mind they were trying to kill her. She also said they were most surely not "speeding," as Americans later reported.

[MetaTrope]

10. Man, sure is going to put a crimp in the good-ol'-boys' fun in ragheadland

:applause:

[northzax]

12. and Italy has jurisdiction, how again?

They can charge anyone they want with anything, I suppose, but the act didn't happen in Italy, nor was it perpretrated by an Italian, so there's really nothing that they can do about it. The only applicable law is that of Iraq and the UMCJ, and I think Iraqi law basically expempts US servicemen and women from domestic law.

[Andromeda]

14. That's true.

It's going to be interesting how this works out.

[worldgonekrazy]

29. I suspect this is a ploy to bring attention to the incident

Italian prosecutors have to know that they don't have jurisdiction and would NEVER get the U.S. to hand over said soldier.

[savemefromdumbya]

27. some Italian sources say soldier was ordered to shoot by US gov!

that's the rumor at the moment. The Pentagon saying it was an accident? We've all heard about accidents.