- ROME - The companion of freed
Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena on Saturday leveled serious accusations
at US troops who fired at her convoy as it was nearing Baghdad airport,
saying the shooting had been deliberate.
-
- "The Americans and Italians knew about (her) car
coming," Pier Scolari said on leaving Rome's Celio military hospital
where Sgrena is to undergo surgery following her return home.
-
- "They were 700 meters (yards) from the airport,
which means that they had passed all checkpoints."
-
- The shooting late Friday was witnessed by Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi's office which was on the phone with one of the secret
service agents, said Scolari. "Then the US military silenced the cellphones,"
he charged.
-
- "Giuliana had information, and the US military did
not want her to survive," he added.
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- When Sgrena was kidnapped on February 4 she was writing
an article on refugees from Fallujah seeking shelter at a Baghdad mosque
after US forces bombed the former Sunni rebel stronghold.
-
- Sgrena told RaiNews24 television Saturday a "hail
of bullets" rained down on the car taking her to safety at Baghdad
airport, along with three secret service agents, killing one of them.
-
- "I was speaking to (agent) Nicola Calipari (...)
when he leant on me, probably to protect me, and then collapsed and I realized
he was dead," said Sgrena, who was being questioned on Saturday by
two Italian magistrates.
-
- "They continued shooting and the driver couldn't
even explain that we were Italians. It was really horrible," she added.
-
- Sgrena, who was hospitalized with serious wounds to her
left shoulder and lung after arriving back in Rome Saturday before noon,
said she was "exhausted because of what happened above all in the
last 24 hours".
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- "After all the risks I have been running I can say
that I'm fine," she said.
-
- "I thought that after I was handed over to the Italians
danger was over, but then this shooting broke out and we were hit by a
hail of bullets."
-
- The chief editor of Sgrena's left-wing newspaper Il Manifesto
Gabriele Polo meanwhile branded Calipari's death a "murder".
-
- "He was hit in the head," he said.
-
- Calipari will be given a state funeral Monday.
-
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- Post Extras: NewsWatcher
- (Man of Vision)
- 03/05/05 06:02 AM
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