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| Hundreds at Italian agent's funeral
From CNN.com Quote:
Hundreds at Italy agent's funeral
Full state ceremony for 'hero' who protected ex-hostage
Monday, March 7, 2005 Posted: 3:32 PM EST (2032 GMT)
ROME, Italy (CNN) -- Hundreds of mourners have attended a full state funeral for an Italian secret service agent shot dead by U.S. gunfire after helping to free an Italian journalist held hostage in Iraq.
The funeral of Nicola Calipari in the Santa Maria degli Angeli Church in Rome was attended by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and other top officials, including U.S. Ambassador Mel Sembler and Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni.
Calipari, 50, has been hailed as a national hero for using his own body to shield the journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, when a U.S. patrol near Baghdad opened fire on the convoy taking her to safety.
An honor guard slowly carried the casket draped with an Italian flag into the church, where mourners who jammed the pews stood to applaud.
In the front row, Calipari's relatives gripped each other's hands and dabbed away tears.
"It is time to honour the heroic sacrifice of Nicola Calipari, without divisions, all together, without controversy. Let's leave the controversy outside," top government official Gianni Letta said in an address, fighting back his tears.
"He died as a hero, and I cannot forget he had also helped to free us," Maurizio Agliana, one of four Italian security guards kidnapped in Iraq last April, told the crowd.
President Ciampi had already said he will award Calipari, a married father of two, the gold medal of valor for his heroism.
The funeral came after Calipari's body lay in state at Rome's Vittoriano monument, where thousands of people streamed past the coffin after the body was returned from Iraq on Saturday.
Meanwhile Sgrena, the hostage whose life Calipari saved, promised the agent's widow she would find out why they were attacked.
The White House on Monday rejected Sgrena's suggestion that she was deliberately targeted by U.S. troops.
"I think it's absurd to make any such suggestion that our men and women in uniform deliberately targeted innocent civilians. That's just absurd," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. (Full story)
CNN's Rome Bureau Chief Alessio Vinci said that in various interviews Sgrena disputed the U.S. account that the car was driving fast and warning shots were fired.
She wrote in her paper that "our car was driving slowly" and that "the Americans fired without motive." (Ex-hostage disputes U.S. account)
He said she was not ruling out the possibility that the Americans may have targeted her on purpose because the U.S. opposed negotiating with kidnappers.
Vinci said there was a lot of pressure on PM Berlusconi to get some answers about what happened on Friday and how one of Italy's most experienced intelligence agents was killed by so-called "friendly fire."
Vinci said the Italian PM had been very quick to summon the U.S. ambassador to seek some explanation, and the Italian people were demanding answers.
The Italian government has made clear that it will continue to support U.S. President George W. Bush despite the killing and will not withdraw its troops from Iraq.
But at the same time it is demanding those responsible for the shooting be punished, Reuters reported.
The U.S. military said Sgrena's car rapidly approached a checkpoint Friday night, and those inside ignored repeated warnings to stop.
Troops used arm signals and flashing white lights, fired warning shots in front of the car, and shot into the engine block when the driver did not stop, the military said in a statement.
In an article published Sunday in her communist newspaper, Il Manifesto, Sgrena described a "rain of fire and bullets" in the incident. (Read the article)
And in an interview with Italy's La 7 Television, the 56-year-old journalist said "there was no bright light, no signal."
Rules of engagement permit coalition troops to use escalating levels of force if they feel threatened. They can use lethal force, for example, if a car refuses to stop for a checkpoint.
It remains unclear whether U.S. officials knew that the Italian security team would be taking Sgrena to the airport. U.S. and Italian officials have not said.
Ransom rumors
Sgrena was slightly wounded in the shoulder and underwent treatment at a U.S. hospital in Baghdad. She is now back in Rome, getting follow-up treatment at the city's military hospital.
Her release Friday came one month to the day after she was abducted outside a mosque in Baghdad.
Italian media suggest a ransom was paid for her release, but government officials are not commenting on the reports. The Italian government has paid ransoms to free other hostages in the past.
An autopsy found Calipari, an experienced negotiator who had previously secured the release of other Italian hostages in Baghdad, was killed by a single shot to the head and died instantly. (Profile)
On Saturday, the left-leaning Il Manifesto accused U.S. forces of "assassinating" Calipari.
Sgrena and her newspaper fiercely oppose the war. She wrote that she told her kidnappers that repeatedly, but they refused to let her go.
CNN's Alessio Vinci and Elise Labott contributed to this report.
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