The United States will not give Italy the names of the US soldiers manning a Baghdad roadblock where 'friendly fire' killed an Italian intelligence officer last year, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.
The justice department said this was its final word on a request from Rome prosecutors to find out who was at the roadblock where SISMI military intelligence officer Nicola Calipari died shielding a released hostage. Italian Justice Minister Roberto Castelli said he "regretted" the decision about Calipari, who was honoured as a national hero on the anniversary of his death two months ago.
From now on, March 4 in Italy will be SISMI Day.
Castelli said the justice ministry had done "everything (it could), and more, to get a different response". Castelli said the decision "could have been influenced" by a demand from Milan prosecutors in a different case: the extradition of 22 CIA agents accused of abducting a Muslim cleric in Milan in 2003.
He hinted that he had played for time in this second case in order to have leverage in the Calipari case.
Castelli eventually turned down the CIA extradition requests last month after being accused of dragging his heels.
Rome investigators completed their inquiry into the incident in January and said they had identified the soldier who fired on Calipari's car. They were able to identify Mario Lozano, 35, thanks to a youth in Bologna who used his computer savvy to uncover the Marine's name which had been blacked out in an unprecedented US-Italian joint report on the incident.
Lozano was later found to be a resident of the Bronx in New York city, a father of two and a member of the New York National Guard. They are expected to seek the indictment of Lozano for murder - but want to question the others present. In January, after meeting with US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini reiterated that Italy had not accepted the findings of the joint commission of inquiry and expected Lozano to be brought before an Italian court.
Nicola Calipari was killed on March 4, 2004 when a temporary US roadblock opened fire on a car carrying him, another agent and a released hostage to Baghdad airport. The ex-hostage, reporter Giuliana Sgrena, and the driver, intelligence agent Andrea Carpani, were injured in the incident. Prosecutors want Lozano, the only soldier to fire on the car, to be charged with attempted murder also.
A joint investigation by Italian and US military experts failed to reach an agreed conclusion, with the American members clearing the soldiers of all responsibility and the Italians blaming the US's organisation of the roadblock. The Toyota Corolla in which Calipari and the others two were travelling came under 'friendly fire' from a temporary roadblock manned by ten US soldiers on their first day ofservice.
Ballistic evidence gathered from the car by Italian experts indicated that only one weapon had been used but that it had fired two separate rounds of machine gun fire. This led Rome investigators to conclude that it was the intention of the person firing the gun to kill those inside the automobile.
According to the American investigation, the car was travelling at high speed, about 80kmh, and the driver panicked.
The US military claimed the driver failed to stop or slow down when soldiers flashed a spotlight, shone a green laser onto the car's windscreen and fired warning shots. The soldiers stuck to the rules of engagement for this sort of situation and therefore no action should be taken against them, the US said. US military authorities also claimed they had not been informed of Calipari's mission and the soldiers knew nothing.
Better coordination could have prevented the death, they said.
In an Italian probe, the agent driving the car told Rome prosecutors that it was travelling at 70kmh when it hit a ditch and slowed down.
Both the agent driving and the released hostage told investigators that the spotlight came on and the shots started at the same time, without any warning. The two Italians involved in the joint enquiry rejected the claim that rules of engagement were respected, arguing that there were no set procedures for the mobile 'blocking point' which the soldiers had set up.
According to the Italians, the US soldiers were under stress and inexperienced.
Italian General Mario Marioli said he informed the US's liaison officer in Iraq that the car carrying the released hostage was heading for Baghdad airport at 20.30 on March 4, 20 minutes before the car came under fire.
