04/27/05

Italians have reacted with outrage to news that an inquiry in the United States into the shooting of an Italian secret service agent in Iraq has cleared the American troops who killed him. ... The killing provoked outrage in Italy and threatened the relationship between the US and an ally which had dispatched 3,000 troops to Iraq. Mr Berlusconi immediately summoned the American ambassador, Mel Sembler, and gave him a dressing-down in the middle of the night. A commission of inquiry was set up, with two senior Italian diplomats as members of the panel. But according to Pentagon officials the report, which could be released today, exculpates the American soldiers. In Il Manifesto yesterday, Ms Sgrena described the report as 'a slap in the face for the Italian government.' ... Ms Sgrena has even suggested that she was deliberately targeted because of her newspaper's opposition to the war and the fact that the Italian authorities had apparently paid a ransom to her captors...

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=633336

from Independent [UK]


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp