The Los Angeles Times is
reporting that an Italian criminal investigation into the death of intelligence agent Nicola Calipari may soon result in charges of voluntary manslaughter against Spc. Mario Lozano of the New York National Guard. Calipari was killed at a hastily erected US checkpoint on the Baghdad airport road while escorting freed hostage Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian reporter who had just been released following secret negotiations led by Calipari.
Clips from the Times article below the fold.
Italian prosecutors are investigating whether to charge a U.S. soldier with homicide in the shooting of a senior Italian intelligence agent who was escorting a kidnap victim to safety in Iraq, officials said Thursday.
The criminal investigation has been in progress for several months but on Thursday narrowed its focus to the single soldier believed to have fired all of the shots on the Italians' car as it approached a Baghdad checkpoint, officials said.
Italians were angered by the killing of Nicola Calipari, a well-respected major general in the military intelligence service. Thousands of people attended his funeral in Rome, where he was accorded top state honors and lauded as a national hero.
The U.S. Army cleared its soldiers of any wrongdoing and blamed the Italians for driving too fast on a dangerous road to the Baghdad airport and for failing to heed the soldiers' warnings to slow down. But Italian investigators, relying on testimony from the Italian intelligence agent driving the car and the journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, concluded that the vehicle had not been speeding and that U.S. troops had not issued any warnings. The Italians blamed jittery American soldiers, on one of their first days in Iraq, and said that the erection of an impromptu checkpoint led to a fatal series of errors.
The Italian investigation does not mean Lozano will be indicted, but it is a necessary step before further judicial action can be taken. Authorities are considering a charge of "voluntary homicide," roughly equivalent to a voluntary manslaughter charge under the U.S. legal system.