by Denis Barnett
ROME - Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena was freed from her Iraqi captors Friday only to be shot and wounded by US troops firing at the convoy carrying her to safety, Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said.
An Italian secret service agent who help secure Sgrena's release was killed when he threw himself in front of her to protect her from the incoming bullets, said Berlusconi, adding his government had called in to US ambassador to Rome, Mel Sembler, to explain the shooting.
The US military confirmed the incident, but said the Italian convoy speeding towards a checkpoint manned by US forces near Baghdad airport ignored signals to slow down and stop.
The prime minister, a staunch ally of US President George W. Bush, told a press conference in Rome there were "disquieting questions" that needed to be answered about the incident.
"Several shots hit the car. One man was mortally wounded by a bullet. We are petrified and dumbfounded by this fatality."
Berlusconi said Sgrena had been hit in the left shoulder, and two other Italians agents had been wounded when their vehicle was raked by American gunfire.
Sgrena's newspaper, the Rome-based leftist daily Il Manifesto, said the 56-year-old journalist underwent lung surgery and that her life was not in danger.
Berlusconi said the dead agent had thrown his body in front of Sgrena to protect her from the shots.
"It is a pity. This was a joyful moment which made all our co-citizens happy, which has been transformed into profound pain by the death of a person who behaved so bravely."
The US military confirmed the shooting but said US soldiers who fired on a speeding vehicle waved their hands and arms, flashed white lights and fired warning shots in a failed attempt to get it to stop.
"When the driver didn't stop, the soldiers shot into the engine block, which stopped the vehicle, killing one and wounding two others," the 3rd Infantry Division said in a statement.
Italy's ANSA news agency said one of the two Italian agents wounded in the shooting was in a serious but stable condition after an operation to remove a bullet from one of his lungs. The other wounded agent had been released from hospital and taken to the Italian embassy.
"There's little to say. The Americans nearly killer her," Sgrena's companion Pier Scolari was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency.
The newspaper named the dead man as Nicola Calipari, saying he was hit while trying to protect Sgrena.
Il Manifesto's editor Gabriele Polo paid tribute to the Italian agent, crediting him with Sgrena's release.
"Nicola Calipari is the person we must thank most for Giuliana's release. Unfortunately, he was killed by American bullets," said Polo.
The journalist was kidnapped in Baghdad last month by an Iraqi group who called on Rome to withdraw its troops from Iraq.
News of the shooting dampened the mood at the Rome offices of the newspaper, where overjoyed staff were celebrating their colleague's release and preparing for her return.
Details of the release were not immediately clear.
Sgrena was abducted February 4 after visiting a Baghdad mosque where refugees have been encamped since a devastating US-led assault on the city of Fallujah in November.
Sgrena was shown pleading for her life in a video released by her kidnappers two weeks after her kidnapping in Baghdad. Sobbing and looking thinner, she delivered an impassioned message pleading for her life, begging Rome to withdraw its troops from Iraq.
Berlusconi's centre-right government rejected the plea, and on the same day used its majority to ensure the Italian Senate voted to extend the mission of Rome's 3,000 troops in Iraq.
A few days after the video was shown, an estimated half a million people marched in Rome to demand her release.
Sgrena has worked since 1988 for Il Manifesto, which opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq.

03/04/2005 22:37 GMT