A top Italian Red Cross official has told the newspaper la Stampa that Italy’s Red Cross treated four wounded Iraqi resistance fighters with the knowledge of the Italian government last year and hid them from U.S. forces in exchange for the freedom of two kidnapped aid workers. Maurizio Scelli, the outgoing chief of the Italian Red Cross, told the paper that he kept the deal secret from U.S. officials, complying with what he called “a nonnegotiable condition” imposed by Iraqi mediators who helped him secure the release of Italians Simona Pari and Simona Torretta. They were abducted in Baghdad last Sept. 7 and freed Sept. 28. The official is quoted as saying “The mediators asked us to save the lives of four alleged terrorists wanted by the Americans who were wounded in combat. We hid them and brought them to Red Cross doctors, who operated on them.” According to his account, the Red Cross took the wounded fighters to a Baghdad hospital in a jeep and an ambulance, smuggling them through two U.S. checkpoints under blankets and boxes of medicines. Also as part of the deal, four Iraqi children with leukemia were brought to Italy for treatment. Scelli said he informed Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government of the deal and of the decision to hide it from the United States. The Italian government neither confirmed nor denied the report but did try to distance itself from the Red Cross.