Rescue of Giuliana Sgrena - Sgrena's Account

Sgrena's Account

"The shooting was not justified by the speed of the vehicle", said Giuliana Sgrena to the Italian news agency Ansa. "Our vehicle rode a normal speed which should not have induced misunderstanding", she told Il Manifesto. "It was not a checkpoint, but a patrol that fired upon us, right after having illuminated us with a projector", according to Giuliana Sgrena. The Italian agent driving the car also denied that the car was traveling at an excessive speed and refused to stop at a checkpoint: "We were driving normally. It was a patrol, in an armoured vehicle, that fired without warning."

In English-language press, claims appeared about Sgrena claiming that US soldiers and a US tank had fired on the vehicle 300 to 400 times. The 300 to 400 figure was given by Sgrena's companion in Italy, Pier Scolari, who had only talked with her on the phone. The Italian word for "tank", carro armato, did not appear in most of the Italian accounts; the term "tank" may be an erroneous translation of blindato, which means "armoured vehicle" or a HMMWV.

A fellow journalist at Il Manifesto claimed that the theory that this was murder attempt by the US forces in order to discourage further hostage-rescue attempts could not be dismissed out of hand. Sgrena claimed that her kidnappers, just before releasing her, had warned her that the American forces would be a danger to her.

Independent reporter Naomi Klein, in an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now (Friday, March 25, 2005), indicated firstly that Giuliana Sgrena's injuries were too severe for her to speak, since she still had fluid in her lungs from her gunshot injuries.

Sgrena told Klein that her car was not traveling on a public road, but rather on a secured road reserved for officials, connecting the green zone directly to the airport. By virtue of being on that road, Sgrena also indicated that she must have already passed through checkpoints to enter the green zone from whence the road emerged, and that her car was driving slowly with its lights on to make it more visible and identifiable. Klein indicated that Sgrena believes that US soldiers with whom her car checked in may not have radioed ahead to mobile checkpoints to indicate that they were coming, but that they were moving away from the military unit that fired upon them, pointing that the driver, who sat in the front, is alive.

In the interview, Naomi Klein also reported that Sgrena also said that she was very disoriented while in captivity, and that her captors didn't want independent journalists in Iraq talking to the Iraqi people.

Pier Scolari, Sgrena's life partner, stated that "Giuliana had information and the US military did not want her alive". "The Americans and the Italians knew that the car was arriving." He claims that Sgrena had detailed information about the use of banned weapons during the recent operations in Fallujah (see Operation Phantom Fury). Sgrena has written about alleged use of napalm in Fallujah. Scolari went on to speculate that they were at 700 metres from the airport, which implies that they had crossed all the checkpoints. "The whole shooting was heard live by the Presidency of the Council, who was on the phone with one of the agents. Then the US military confiscated and turned off the phones", said Scolari, who was then at the Palazzo Chigi. General Casey claimed that Sgrena and Calipari's vehicle had not gone through any prior checkpoints.