ROME - The US ambassador to Italy has asked Washington to urgently explain what led to the shooting incident in Baghdad that left Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena wounded and an Italian intelligence officer dead, officials said Saturday.
Mel Sembler told Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi "everything would be done to shed full light on the incident" which took place late Friday, a statement issued by Berlusconi's office said.
Sembler "has already requested an urgent clarification," said the statement.
The shooting at a US-manned checkpoint as Sgrena, the 56-year-old veteran Middle East correspondent for the communist daily Il Manifesto, was about to leave Iraq to safety risked casting a pall over relations between the two allies in the Iraq conflict, which is widely opposed by the Italian public.
The statement was issued after a meeting between Berlusconi and Sembler.
The envoy expressed his "deep sympathy to the Italian government and people as well as to the family" of Nicola Calipari, the slain intelligence officer who had been negotiating Sgrena's release after a month in captivity, said the statement.
Berlusconi told a press conference in Rome late Friday there were troubling questions that needed to be answered about the incident.
03/05/2005 15:39 GMT