Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Post
May 15, 2007
By Neil Graves
Mario Lozano, the Manhattan soldier who faces friendly-fire murder charges in Italy, yesterday said he filmed a video immediately after the 2005 incident in Iraq that will ultimately absolve him.
He said the 30-second video backs his account that he wounded kidnapped Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and killed her negotiator, intelligence agent Nicola Calipari, only because their vehicle wouldn't stop at a checkpoint after repeated warnings.
The pair was trying to flee Baghdad shortly after Sgrena was released after being held by terrorists for 30 days.
"After the incident, I took out my camera and filmed it," said Lozano, who noted that many GIs use personal cameras in Iraq. "It shows how close together we were, about 15 meters."
The Italian court in which Lozano is being tried in absentia met for only the second time yesterday, after convening briefly April 17. The trial is to resume July 10.
Attorney Scott Maslin, who is on Lozano's defense team, said both U.S. and Italian investigators had seen the tapes and already cleared the soldier of wrongdoing during their original probes.
Lozano said he never made the tapes public because "I didn't want it to be all over the Internet while people were editing it. I wanted to make sure I had my own evidence. I wanted to show the car was close enough to kill me."
May 15, 2007
By Neil Graves
Mario Lozano, the Manhattan soldier who faces friendly-fire murder charges in Italy, yesterday said he filmed a video immediately after the 2005 incident in Iraq that will ultimately absolve him.
He said the 30-second video backs his account that he wounded kidnapped Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and killed her negotiator, intelligence agent Nicola Calipari, only because their vehicle wouldn't stop at a checkpoint after repeated warnings.
The pair was trying to flee Baghdad shortly after Sgrena was released after being held by terrorists for 30 days.
"After the incident, I took out my camera and filmed it," said Lozano, who noted that many GIs use personal cameras in Iraq. "It shows how close together we were, about 15 meters."
The Italian court in which Lozano is being tried in absentia met for only the second time yesterday, after convening briefly April 17. The trial is to resume July 10.
Attorney Scott Maslin, who is on Lozano's defense team, said both U.S. and Italian investigators had seen the tapes and already cleared the soldier of wrongdoing during their original probes.
Lozano said he never made the tapes public because "I didn't want it to be all over the Internet while people were editing it. I wanted to make sure I had my own evidence. I wanted to show the car was close enough to kill me."