And here in New York, a U.S. soldier involved in the fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent in Iraq said he is not to blame for the agent’s death. Last week, an Italian court dismissed the absentia trial of Mario Lozano for the killing of Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari. Lozano allegedly shot Calipari as he escorted the then-newly freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena to the airport. In an interview with Reuters news agency, Lozano directly blamed Giuliana Sgrena, the kidnapped journalist, for what happened. Sgrena was in Iraq reporting for the Italian newspaper Il Manifesto when she was kidnapped. Lozano criticized Sgrena for going to Iraq and reporting on the war.

Mario Lozano: “You know, she went out there. She wanted to mingle with the terrorists and all that. And then she gets caught. Now we have to send — now we have to send good men to go after this one person that knows that she put herself in the situation. You know, she knows that if she’s going to go talk to terrorists, she knows there’s a 99 percent chance she will get caught. So, why did she do that for? It’s beyond my — you know, I don’t understand. So it’s her fault that this is happening, not my fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not America’s fault. It’s not the Italian government’s fault. It’s Sgrena’s fault.”