EL GENERAL MAROLI, oficial del ejército italiano que actuó de enlace entre los servicios secretos italianos y el ejército de los EEUU, ha confirmado que desconocía que los agentes que fueron a Iraq tuviesen la misión de liberar a Giuliana Sgrena y que, por tanto, mal pudo informar a los cowboys de lo que se estaba cociendo:

US forces might not have known that slain Italian secret agent Nicola Calipari was in Iraq to secure a hostage's freedom, Italian papers say.

Calipari was killed by US troops' fire while escorting journalist Giuliana Sgrena by car to Baghdad airport.

But the press quotes an Italian general who liaised between US forces and Italian intelligence as saying he did not know Calipari was on a rescue bid.

His report is now in the hands of Rome prosecutors investigating the killing.

According to newspaper La Repubblica, Gen Mario Marioli helped the two Italian secret service agents obtain a special badge from the coalition forces on their arrival in Baghdad.

But Gen Marioli, who is the coalition forces' second-in-command, reportedly was unaware that the officers were on a mission to free Ms Sgrena, and so the information he passed on to US officials was incomplete.

[...] Gen Marioli's testimony is crucial because he is the man who was keeping the US forces informed of the car's arrival before the fatal shooting, in which a US patrol killed the secret service agent and injured Ms Sgrena and a second officer.

Gen Marioli's version, as reported by the papers, also contradicts a reconstruction by the Italian government and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who said the US military had been advised that Ms Sgrena was on board the car.

También se sabe el porqué del puesto de control: no estaba allí para "cazar" a Sgrena, como ella misma afirma, sino porque acababa de pasar la comitiva en la que viajaba John Negroponte.