U.S. Fires on Freed Hostage

U.S. troops opened fire Friday evening on a car rushing a freed Italian hostage to the Baghdad airport, wounding her and killing an Italian security agent who had helped negotiate her release, officials said.

Giuliana Sgrena, a journalist who had been held captive for a month, underwent surgery in a nearby American military hospital to remove shrapnel from her shoulder and was expected to survive, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said in Rome. Reports indicated that one or two other intelligence agents with Sgrena were also wounded.

Berlusconi, one of Washington’s most loyal allies in the war in Iraq, said he had summoned U.S. Ambassador to Italy Mel Sembler for an explanation after hearing the news, which he said had turned him “to stone.”

“The behavior of the American soldiers, in such a serious incident, must be explained,” Berlusconi said on national TV, as Italians who had begun to celebrate Sgrena’s release were stunned at the turn of events. “Someone must take responsibility.”

Berlusconi said the dead secret service agent, Nicola Calipari, 50, perished as he shielded Sgrena with his body.

“There’s not much to say: She was almost killed by the Americans,” said Sgrena’s companion, Pier Scolari, who had gone to Baghdad to help retrieve her.

In the United States, President Bush called Berlusconi from Air Force One “to express his regret about the incident,” White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Friday. “The president assured Prime Minister Berlusconi that the incident will be fully investigated.”

The State Department released a statement saying, “We express our deep condolences for this tragic event. We have offered the government of Italy any assistance that we may provide to assist its citizens involved in this event.”

Assistant Secretary of State William J. Burns telephoned Italian Ambassador Sergio Vento to offer condolences.

In the Iraqi capital, the U.S. military also promised an investigation of the incident, which took place in darkness just before 9 p.m.

Sgrena’s car was traveling at high speed toward a checkpoint, the military said in a statement, and troops repeatedly “tried to warn the driver” to slow down before opening fire. The statement said soldiers shot into the engine block only after trying to warn the driver to stop by “hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and firing warning shots.”

The road leading to Baghdad’s airport is notoriously unsafe. Roadside bombs frequently detonate under U.S. convoys, and a checkpoint outside the airport was attacked by a car bomber several months ago.

The Italian agents from the state intelligence service apparently were dispatched to pick up Sgrena, 56, and had been involved in negotiations with her kidnappers, Italian officials said. It was not immediately revealed whether a ransom had been paid to secure her release, as was thought to have been the case for at least some Italians taken hostage in Iraq.

Calipari, the slain agent, had been involved in the negotiations.

“Nicola Calipari is the person we should thank for the freedom of Giuliana,” Gabriele Polo, the editor of Sgrena’s left-wing newspaper, Il Manifesto, said in Rome. “Unfortunately, he was killed by an American patrol.”

Sgrena was shown in a videotape before her release, dressed in black and standing behind a table of fruit, apparently thanking her captors for letting her go. It was in marked contrast to a video released last month that showed her begging for her life in a crouched position, clasping her hands.

For Italians, Friday was a roller-coaster of emotions -- beginning with celebrations at the news of her release.

“This is the happiest day of my life,” Sgrena’s brother Ivan told journalists outside his house in northern Italy.

“She’s free! She’s free,” Sgrena’s father, Franco, shouted after receiving the news by telephone from a senior Italian official, Ivan said.

At the Rome offices of Il Manifesto, staffers embraced, danced and popped the corks on bottles of white wine. Italian leaders and the ailing Pope John Paul II expressed what Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini called “a great joy” upon learning of Sgrena’s release.

After the shooting and Calipari’s death, the mood turned more somber.

“This news, which should have been a moment of celebration, has been ruined by this firefight,” said Polo, the editor.

“Immense pain accompanies the joy and relief at the liberation of Giuliana Sgrena,” said Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni.

Before the shooting, Berlusconi had sent an airplane to retrieve Sgrena from Baghdad, and she had been expected to arrive in Italy later today.

Much of Italy had mobilized to demand Sgrena’s freedom and was horrified by last month’s videotape in which the veteran correspondent pleaded for her life. Tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of Rome on Feb. 19 to express solidarity with the abducted journalist and urge an end to Italian involvement in Iraq.

Her newspaper made a point of reprinting her articles, which were sympathetic to the plight of Iraqi civilians and other downtrodden people.

Sgrena, seized Feb. 4 after interviewing refugees from the Iraqi city of Fallouja, is one of nearly a dozen Italians who have been kidnapped in Iraq. At least two -- a security guard and a journalist -- were killed, but others were released. Among those freed were two female aid workers seized from their offices in Baghdad.

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Tragic errors

Some deadly mistaken shootings in Iraq:

March 4, 2005: American forces fire on a car carrying a freed Italian hostage as it approaches a checkpoint in Baghdad, killing an Italian intelligence officer and wounding three others, including the just-released journalist.

April 19, 2004: A correspondent and driver for the U.S.-funded television station Al Iraqiya are shot and killed by U.S. troops.

Sept. 12, 2003: U.S. forces kill eight Iraqi police and a Jordanian security guard in Fallouja. Nine are wounded.

Aug. 17, 2003: A Reuters cameraman is shot and killed while working near U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad.

April 8, 2003: A cameraman for the Spanish television network Telecinco and a Ukrainian TV cameraman for Reuters are killed when a U.S. tank fires at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad.

April 6, 2003: A Kurdish translator for the BBC and 17 allied Kurdish fighters are killed in the U.S. bombing of a joint convoy of Kurds and U.S. Special Forces in northern Iraq.

March 31, 2003: American troops kill seven Iraqi women and children and wound two at a checkpoint near Najaf, in south-central Iraq, when their van carrying 13 people fails to stop as ordered.

Source: Associated Press

Wilkinson reported from Rome and Khalil from Baghdad. Times staff writer Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.