By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
NEW YORK: A US soldier facing trial in absentia in Italy for shooting dead an Italian hostage negotiator and wounding a reporter at a road block in Baghdad said Monday he had no choice but to open fire. Specialist Mario Lozano told the New York Post in his first major interview since the 2005 incident that when confronted with the vehicle moving at speed towards his checkpoint he did what any other soldier would have done.
"If you hesitate, you come home in a box - and I didn't want to come home in a box. I did what any soldier would do in my position," Lozano said.
"You have a warning line, you have a danger line, and you have a kill line," he explained. "Anyone inside 100 meters is already in the danger zone ... and you've got to take them out."
Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena, who had just been freed by her kidnappers, and intelligence agent Nicola Calipari, who had negotiated her release, were among those in the vehicle when Lozano opened fire with a machine gun.
Sgrena and a police officer were shot and wounded while Calipari was killed.
Lozano, from New York City, is to be tried in absentia for involuntary homicide and attempted homicide by Italian justice officials next week.
Calipari, who shielded Sgrena during the shooting, was hailed as a hero, awarded Italy's top bravery award and given a state funeral.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb
A US inquiry exonerated Lozano, with US authorities saying that Calipari's car was traveling too fast, had not slowed down and that Italian officials had not told them of the operation to free Sgrena.
Italy said Calipari's death resulted from a mistake on the part of the US military and that the checkpoint was manned by inexperienced troops.
The vehicle had been racing to catch a plane from Baghdad airport when it came under fire.
Lozano told the Post he had done everything to try to make the vehicle stop, from flashing a searchlight - something he said made "every Iraqi slam on the brakes" - to shooting into the ground and then into the vehicle's engine.
Lozano blames Sgrena for the incident, saying the correspondent for the left-wing newspaper Il Manifesto had failed to ensure that US forces in the area knew about the vehicle's whereabouts.
"I'm sure her life isn't like mine," he said.
"She's famous. Meanwhile, I've got to live with the fact that a guy got killed because he didn't comply with orders and I was that guy who pulled the trigger." - AFP
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