How was Sgrena being driven?
So who’s telling the truth? Based on their past record, I wouldn’t put any money on the US troops. And we won’t start a discussion on whether warning shots were fired and hand signals given by the army:
US Marines (via BBC):
US military officials in Baghdad say they tried to stop the car – making hand signals, flashing lights and firing warning shots – before firing at the vehicle’s engine.(and via Bloomberg):
The convoy carrying Sgrena and Calipari was approaching the checkpoint at a “high rate of speed’’ about 8:55 p.m. yesterday, said Marine Sergeant Salju Thomas by telephone from Baghdad. “It’s an extremely threatening act,’’ Thomas said. “That’s the exact same thing that car bombers do.’‘
Giuliana Sgrena (via the BBC):
“There was suddenly this shooting, we were hit by a hail of gunfire, and I was speaking with Nicola, who was telling me about what had been happening in Italy in the meantime, when he leaned towards me, probably also to protect me,” Ms Sgrena told Rai radio… ...Asked if the car was going too fast when the US troops opened fire, she said: “We weren’t going particularly fast given that type of situation.”Update (2005-03-06):
The Observer reports that acording to the Italians, not only was the vehicle travelling slowly due to the road conditions, but that it had already passed several checkpoints on the way to the airport, and that despite the injuries to the occupants, the marines first confiscated their weapons and mobile phones, preventing them from contacting their colleagues in Rome for an hour, before organising medical aid:
...Italian reconstruction of the incident is significantly different. Sgrena told colleagues the vehicle was not travelling fast and had already passed several checkpoints on its way to the airport. The Americans shone a flashlight at the car and then fired between 300 and 400 bullets at if from an armoured vehicle. Rather than calling immediately for assistance for the wounded Italians, the soldiers’ first move was to confiscate their weapons and mobile phones and they were prevented from resuming contact with Rome for more than an hour
Enzo Bianco, the opposition head of the parliamentary committee that oversees Italy’s secret services, described the American account as unbelievable. ‘They talk of a car travelling at high speed, and that is not possible because there was heavy rain in Baghdad and you can’t travel at speed on that road,’ Bianco said. ‘They speak of an order to stop, but we’re not sure that happened.’...