August 31, 2005—The government-appointed ex-commissioner of the Italian Red Cross, Maurizio Scelli, has recently rekindled the hostage-negotiation political scandal that severely damaged Italy's relations with Washinton, following the killing of top intelligence agent Nicola Calipari at Baghad airport by American troops last March.
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Scelli said that mediators for the release of two aid workers, abducted in Baghdad in September 2004, Simona Torretta and Simona Parri, requested the assistance of the Italian Red Cross in treating four combat-wounded "terrorists," wanted by the Americans, as a condition for release of the hostages. A further condition required that the Americans be kept in the dark about these maneuvers. An additional request called for the treatment of a number of children suffering from leukemia.
[...] Moreover, Scelli maintains, Calipari, the artificer of the release of journalist Giuliana Sgrena and the victim of the improvised US checkpoint killing on the night of 9 March, himself advised that General Mario Marioli, vice-commander of allied forces in Iraq, not be informed of these compromises in the negotiations for the release of the aid workers.
Calipari's boss, SISMI (Italian secret service bureau) chief Nicolo' Pollari, and his boss, parliamentary undersecretary for intelligence affairs, Gianni Letta, knew and consented to these measures, which means that the negotiations were approved at the topmost levels of the Italian government, behind the back, so to speak, of the Bush administration.
If Italy's former ambassador to the US, Sergio Romano, is correct in claiming that Washington is politically "terrorized" by the thought of an Italian troop withdrawal from Iraq, then Gianni Letta's reported furor behind closed doors at Scelli's revelations is understandable. "Scelli has gone mad! We worked so hard to rebuild relations with Washington after the Calipari incident and now he blows it all up again," said the normally unflappable under-secretary.
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In Washington, Bush spokesmen said that the Scelli incident was an internal matter, which concerned the Italian government.
Meanwhile, the Italian justice department, investigating Calipari's homicide, is preparing to make public its findings, but one conclusion seems to have been leaked. Ballistic analysis of the white Toyota, the Sgrena rescue car fired upon at the fateful rendezvous with American troops, shows that two weapons were used, not one, as the American investigation had concluded last spring.
If Scelli's claims are trustworthy—the government has not denied them—then there is a common link between the release of the Simonas and the release of Giuliana Sgrena. In both cases, Calipari insisted upon keeping Americans in the dark. On his second try, he was killed.