ROME, 9 March 2005 — Italy’s Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini demanded yesterday that the United States “identify and punish” those responsible for the shooting of Rome’s top intelligence in Iraq, Nicola Calipari.
Fini dismissed Washington’s view that a lack of communication was responsible for the death of Calipari, who died in a hail of gunfire from US troops as he escorted a freed Italian hostage to Baghdad airport last Friday.
Calipari had made “all the necessary contacts” with US authorities in Baghdad, the foreign minister said.
In his account to Parliament of the shooting, which has sparked a diplomatic row with Rome’s US allies, Fini said the “reconstruction” by Washington of the events which led to Calipari’s death differed from Italy’s.
“We ask for truth and justice,” Fini said, though he also took pains to point out that Italy “has an old and emphatic friendship with the US.”
