Italy weeps for its slain hero

ROME - Italy's new national hero, Nicola Calipari, was laid to rest yesterday with pomp and ceremony.

As a huge crowd watched on video screens outside, the secret agent killed by American gunfire was eulogised at a funeral Mass in the ancient basilica of St Mary of the Angels and Martyrs at Piazza della Repubblica in the centre of Rome.

Top officials of the state and politicians from all parts of the political spectrum attended the service.

The Government, stunned by the killing of its chief hostage negotiator when he was only minutes from safety, is awaiting the results of an investigation that United States that President George W. Bush has promised will uncover the truth.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose prestige has been dented by the killing, will be hoping the results arrive in time for him to shed some light on the affair when he addresses Parliament tomorrow.

But yesterday political differences were set aside as Italy mourned the spy who hurled himself on top of Giuliana Sgrena as the Americans began firing, saving her life.

Veteran war correspondent Sgrena, held hostage in Iraq for a month, has worked for Il Manifesto, a communist newspaper, since 1988.

She has suggested they were fired at because the US opposes Italy's policy of negotiating with hostage-takers.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan rejected as "simply absurd" the idea that US soldiers had deliberately fired on "innocent civilians".

The Italian Government has made clear it will continue to support Bush despite the killing and will not withdraw its troops from Iraq.

To the Italian left, the secret service was for many years its sworn enemy, blamed for ruthlessly framing and otherwise disposing of unco-operative leftists, the tendency immortalised in Dario Fo's bitter farce, Accidental Death of an Anarchist. But the supposedly accidental death of 51-year-old Calipari has brought about an improbable compact.

"He's a hero for me - and I used to throw cobblestones at the police," said Il Manifesto editor Gabriele Polo.

"Can the so-called radical left weep for a person like Nicola Calipari? Yes. I believe Nicola must be considered a hero, like all those who die pursuing a just cause without taking account of their own safety ...

"I've learned that people must be judged not by their uniform but by their behaviour."

It is the second time tragedy in Iraq has kindled an unexpected sense of national unity here.

The first was the killing by a suicide bomber of 19 Italian soldiers serving in Nasiriyah 17 months ago.

No voice is raised against Berlusconi's unofficial policy of paying ransoms; on the contrary, civilised Italian values are contrasted with those of the US for whom, as Sgrena put it, "war is war, human life is worth little".

At the funeral service, Gianni Letta, the close adviser to Berlusconi who was in charge of the hostage negotiations, said of Calipari: "You have restored our faith in Italy. You have restored to Italians the notion of patria."

Calipari was "a man of courage but also of quietness".

- INDEPENDENT