Italian investigators have clashed with Americans over plans to absolve US soldiers of any blame for the death of the Italian secret service agent Nicola Calipari, killed while escorting an Italian hostage out of Iraq last month.
The Italians are also unhappy that the US will not let them examine the car in which Calipari was travelling when shot.
The joint investigation is deadlocked and the dispute is holding up the final report on the incident, according to Italian newspapers on Thursday.
In the US, however, NBC News has said a preliminary report from the US-Italian commission has been completed and clears the Americans of any wrongdoing in the killing of Calipari.
He was killed by a US patrol at a temporary checkpoint on the road to Baghdad airport on March 4 as he escorted the journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who had been held captive by extremists for a month. He tried to shield her as their car was hit by bullets. Sgrena and another intelligence officer were wounded.
Both sides agree the shooting was accidental, but the Italians dispute key elements of the account from the US soldiers, who say they fired at the car because it was speeding and did not stop.
The Italians deny the speeding, saying the car was doing 40-50kph. They say the US Army authorized the journey and the driver did not get a stop warning.
Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said Italy and the US had shown excellent cooperation in the investigation, which is led by a US brigadier general and has two Italian members. But Corriere della Sera and La Stampa on Thursday suggested the diplomatic words hid serious misgivingss, which are holding up the report.
The US State Department, meanwhile, has denied the investigation absolved the Americans of responsibility.
"The investigation is still ongoing," spokesman Thomas Casey said. "Anyone claiming that conclusions have been reached, and they know what they are, must be misinformed."
The investigation also found that US troops shot at the car when it was 59m away, after flashing warning lights at 118m and firing warning shots at 82m, NBC said.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
A powerful magnitude 7.6 earthquake shook Japan’s northeast region late on Monday, prompting tsunami warnings and orders for residents to evacuate. A tsunami as high as three metres (10 feet) could hit Japan’s northeastern coast after an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 7.6 occurred offshore at 11:15 p.m. (1415 GMT), the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. Tsunami warnings were issued for the prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori and Iwate, and a tsunami of 40cm had been observed at Aomori’s Mutsu Ogawara and Hokkaido’s Urakawa ports before midnight, JMA said. The epicentre of the quake was 80 km (50 miles) off the coast of
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
RSS