BAGHDAD - Temporary checkpoints were set up on Baghdad's airport road the night Italian agent Nicola Calipari was killed because the US ambassador in Iraq was travelling there for dinner, an embassy official said Friday.
"He was going to have dinner with General Casey at Camp Victory at his quarters at 7:30 pm (1630 GMT) and there was a hailstorm," embassy spokesman Bob Callahan told reporters.
The spokesman was referring to an appointment at a US base at the airport between outgoing ambassador John Negroponte and the commander of US ground troops, General George Casey.
"Normally he would go there by helicopter, but the helicopter could not take him there, so he was taken out by a motorcade and got to General Casey's around 8:00 o'clock (1700 GMT) that evening," added Callahan.
After dinner, Negroponte flew back to the fortified Green Zone where the embassy is based and only found out about the Calipari shooting shortly after his return, according to Callahan.
Calipari and other Italian agents were escorting freed hostage Guiliana Sgrena on March 4 when their car ran into a hail of gunfire from US soldiers not far from the main checkpoint leading into Baghdad airport, killing the senior intelligence officer and wounding Sgrena and another agent.
Sgrena, a journalist for Italy's Il Manifesto paper held hostage by insurgents for a month in Iraq, said the shooting was from a US patrol and not a checkpoint.
The US military has maintained that Sgrena's car was speeding and failed to slow down or stop after soldiers flashed lights, sent other signals and fired warning shots before finally shooting at the vehicle.
"Those mobile checkpoints were established to enhance the security for the ambassador," said Callahan.
Another official at the embassy, who did not wish to be identified, explained that the term mobile does not mean the checkpoint is moving around like a patrol but that it is temporary and set up for a specific purpose.
"A mobile one is one set up for a purpose and goes away," he said.
Italy's General Mario Marioli, who is a deputy commander of the US-led coalition troops in Iraq, was tasked with coordinating with the US military the passage of Calipari's convoy.
But it is unclear how much he himself was informed about the agent's itinerary, La Repubblica newspaper reported Friday.
The shooting incident is currently under investigation by a US-Italian commission headed by a US general.

03/11/2005 13:28 GMT