(ANSA) - The former commissioner of the Italian Red Cross (CRI) sparked a political storm on Thursday when he revealed that his organisation treated wounded terrorists to obtain the release of two kidnapped Italian aid workers in Iraq.
In a front-page interview with La Stampa, Maurizio Scelli said CRI agreed to treat "four presumed terrorists" and give medical care to four of their children to secure the release of Simona Pari and Simona Torretta last year.
"The mediators asked us to treat and save the lives of four presumed terrorists sought by the US, (who had been) wounded in combat. We hid them and took them to (Italian) Red Cross doctors who operated on them. We also treated four of their children, sick with leukaemia," Scelli said.
According to Scelli, the US was not informed and Italian general Mario Marioli, deputy commander of the allied forces in Iraq, was similarly kept in the dark. "Not telling the Americans what we were planning to do was a non-negotiable condition to ensure the safety of the hostages and ourselves," said Scelli, adding that Cabinet Undersecretary Gianni Letta "also agreed."
Scelli said that at the time he had informed Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari of the operation. Calipari - who was shot dead at a US checkpoint in March while driving another released hostage to safety - urged him not to inform General Marioli. Italy and the US have issued conflicting reports on the 'friendly fire" shooting of Calipari after an unprecedented joint probe.
Asked by state TV channel TG2 to confirm that the government had been briefed on CRI's deal, Scelli reiterated that his organisation was entirely responsible for the operation and that the cabinet was "informally" advised. "The government denies that it was directly involved in the negotiations and in the operation and that's true. We always said that we were responsible for the operation, that we handled the negotiations...with mediators and others who set specific conditions that I later informally advised the government about so that we could conclude things the way they were concluded," he told TG2.
Scelli stressed that he had no direct contacts with the terrorists, reiterating that CRI's negotiation power was the result of its humanitarian efforts and widespread support among the population. "We relied on our commitment there, on the credibility we had in Baghdad, on the relationships we had developed by treating 150,000 Iraqis. We never had direct contacts with terrorists."
A statement released shortly after midday by Premier Silvio Berlusconi's office stressed that neither the
government nor any of its offices had "influenced nor conditioned" CRI's actions which were "fully autonomous."
The government's cooperation with the US has always been "frank and loyal" and has "never waivered," the statement added. It stressed that Italy has always worked closely with the US in Iraq and that their cooperation had led to a number of important achievements, including several in intelligence operations.
Scelli's interview prompted immediate calls from the opposition for a detailed and thorough explanation from the government. The Communist Refoundation party said the government had a "moral and political duty" to report to the House. The centrist Daisy Party said Scelli had raised a number of "undisclosed details", including issues concerning the government's relations with the US, which must be debated
promptly in the House. Green party leader Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio called for a parliamentary probe.
The prosecutor's office in Rome said it would launch its own investigation and question Scelli, who had already been grilled by prosecutors shortly after Torretta and Pari were released in September 2004. At the time, prosecutors were probing a report by a Kuwaiti daily that a ransom had been paid to free them.
Scelli was present when the two women were handed over in a location near Baghdad. Speaking shortly after, he said that as part of the release deal, 15 seriously wounded Iraqi patients would be flown to Rome to be treated in Italian hospitals. Scelli, who accompanied the women back home, told reporters that his organisation had pledged to step upits work in Iraq.
The two women's release had been made possible, he said "also by our commitment to stay in Iraq and boost our activities even though this will entail risks for our lives."
