(Adnkronos) – Foreign minister Antonio Tajani on Tuesday paid tribute to slain Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari who was accidentally killed on 4 March 2005 in Iraq by US soldiers while escorting a recently freed hostage to Baghdad airport.
“Twenty years after his death, we remember Nicola Calipari. An Italian hero,” Tajani wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“He gave his life for the security and freedom of others, a symbol of dedication to duty and sacrifice in the service of the country,” Tajani wrote beneath a photo of Calipari posted with the tweet.
Calipari, a major general in Italy’s military intelligence and security service died in a hail of bullets fired at a roadblock to protect US ambassador John Negroponte in an attack that caused diplomatic tensions between Italy and the US.
Newly released Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena and another military intelligence officer, Andrea Carpani, were wounded in the attack but survived.
Calipari masterminded the release of Sgrena, an award-winning journalist for Italy’s leftist daily Il Manifesto, who was held hostage by insurgents in Iraq for two months.
