Italy To Charge US Soldiers Involved In Sgrena Incident

Italian prosecutors said on Thursday that they had begun the process of charging a US soldier in the wrongful death of Italian agent Nicola Calipari and the injury of two other Italians in Iraq last March, an unusual case Italian officials say is going forward despite the fact the US’ refusal to cooperate.

The 52-year-old Calipari was killed on 4 March by soldiers at a US checkpoint near Baghdad Airport after Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena had been freed from her kidnappers. When the soldiers opened fire on their vehicle, Calipari shielded Sgrena with his body. He died immediately, and Sgrena and another agent in the car were injured.

At the time, the US claimed that the car’s driver had ignored repeated orders to slow down and that soldiers had fired on the vehicle because it was unclear that it did not represent a threat.

Italy has denied those charges, claiming that the car was traveling at a normal sleep and was clearly identified as Italian. Italy says the US soldiers acted irresponsibly because of inexperience, stress, and fatigue.

The incident caused big problems in the Italy-US relationship, but this prosecution is going to make things worse - for the Italians. A joint Italian US investigation initially found no evidence of any wrongdoing by the US, a separate US investigation found no wrongdoing although the Italians disagreed on certain key points, and there is sufficient evidence pointing to malfeasance on the part of the Italians involved in the 'rescue' of Sgrena. Not to mention that Sgrena had a different version of events for every day of the week.

Instead, at least one US soldier is going to be political cannon fodder because of a tragic accident that could have been avoided had the Italians simply complied with the US checkpoint to slow down and stop.