Mario Lozano (soldier)

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Mario Lozano is a member of the US Army holding the rank of specialist, who has been indicted by an Italian court for his role in the death of Italian Secret Service officer Nicola Calipari in an incident on Route Irish, immediately following the Rescue of Giuliana Sgrena.

SPC Lozano who is largely of Puerto Rican ancestry (and has a paternal grandfather who was half Sicilian) is a native resident of the borough of the Bronx in New York City^[1]. He is assigned to the 1st Battalion of the 69th Infantry Regiment, 42nd Infantry Division of the New York State National Guard, based in Manhattan, New York.

SPC Lozano was not the only US soldier involved in this incident, but receives much more attention because he is the one who actually manned the machine gun.

1 Involvement in the death of Nicola Calipari
2 See also
3 References

[edit] Involvement in the death of Nicola Calipari

Main article: Rescue of Giuliana Sgrena

SPC Lozano shot and killed Major General Nicola Calipari in Baghdad, during a disputed incident at BP 541, a blocking position (a loose term indicating a mobile roadblock that allows no traffic to pass) located behind a ninety-degree turn on the ramp joining Route Vernon to Route Irish (the road between the heavily fortified Green Zone and Baghdad International Airport). Calipari was returning from a successful rescue mission to liberate Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian independent journalist, detained by Iraqi insurgents. Both Sgrena and a colleague of Calipari, Andrea Carpani, were wounded in the shooting.

SPC Lozano and members of his squad had been directed to set up the blocking position as part of security measures for ambassador John Negroponte's convoy from the city to the airport. Despite the fact that the convoy had already passed twenty minutes earlier, a communications failure with the dispatching unit (which had just deployed to Iraq, and was on the job for literally the first time), meant that SPC Lozano's squad had been in place for more than eighty minutes, sixty-five minutes over the customary length.

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US Army report

An internal U.S. Army investigation cleared SPC Lozano of any wrongdoings, and concluded that he acted completely within the standing rules of engagement. It was pointed out during the Army investigation that Calipari, who had previously been in contact with the United States Embassy in Baghdad and had previously been sharing information and working with US Coalition forces in order to free Sgrena, did not share information about the rescue attempt with the embassy. In addition, two members of SPC Lozano's unit were killed two days previously in a car bombing very near to where the incident occurred. Even if 58 bullets were missing from his M-249 SAW, forensic evidence showed that the vehicle had been struck a total of 11 times by 5.56 bullets, and that only 2 had entered through the windshield. SPC Lozano told investigators that he had fired the remaining bullets while test-firing his weapon and attempting to walk the bullets up to the speeding car to warn it of the impending danger from the blocking position.

A related report^[2] issued by Italian authorities, rather than accusing SPC Lozano of being the sole culprit, pointed to the inappropriate placement of the blocking position (at the end of a one-way ramp between two highways) and lack of proper warning signals and/or concertina wire. The Italian report stated that because of the short span of visible road from the BP, SPC Lozano, being in charge of both the searchlight used to warn incoming vehicles and of the machine gun, had only seconds to react, point the searchlight, warn the vehicle, assess it was not halting, man the weapon, aim, shoot warning shots, and then disabling shots.

[edit] Video

On May 8, 2007, the Italian television channel Canale 5 broadcasted a video of the very first moments after the shooting. In this video, Calipari's car is seen stopped on the road after the shooting, with the door open, the lights switched on, and apparently more than 50 meters away from the US Army tank. Some have suggested this video contradicts claims by the US that the car was traveling with its lights switched off and was fired upon by Lozano when it was less than 50 meters from his position. However, no video of the actual shooting is available to determine this conclusively.

[edit] Judicial Investigation

Italian prosecutors are now actively seeking to interview SPC Lozano as part of their criminal investigation into Calipari's death. On December 22, 2005 the special prosecutors of the Magistrate's service of Rome announced that they were considering charging SPC Lozano with voluntary manslaughter.^{[citation needed]}

On January 18, 2006, it was reported that the prosecutors had decided to charge SPC Lozano with murder. The prosecutors indicated that despite making over twenty formal requests to the U.S., the U.S. refused to formally identify SPC Lozano. After confirming SPC Lozano's identity, the Magistrate service appointed an attorney to represent SPC Lozano during the charging process.

In June of 2006, the Italian government announced that prosecutors have formally charged SPC Lozano with murder, and were considering an extradition request. The Italian government then carried through with its threat, and the U.S. government, as expected, denied the extradition request. At that point, the Italian authorities considered putting SPC Lozano on trial in absentia.

Putting foreigners on trial in absentia is a relatively uncommon practice in Italy, but exceptions are made for cases of "political murder". Prosecutors in Italy announced that the case against SPC Lozano qualifies as a "political murder" case, and was thus eligible for trial in absentia.

In the meantime, newspapers in the United States have quoted soldiers in SPC Lozano's unit who said that he had been "devastated" when he learned that he had killed an Italian officer and wounded a female civilian, and that he was unable to sleep for days afterward.^{[citation needed]}

On April 10, 2007, SPC Lozano gave an interview to CBS Television in which he appeared deeply concerned about the legal proceeding in Italy, and very sorry about the "pain he'd provoked to the family of Nicola Calipari". He also reconfirmed the version he and his superiors already gave of the incident in Iraq, providing a sole new insight: contrasting the opinion of Mrs. Sgrena's life partner Pier Scolari that he'd shot "300- or 400- rounds into and around the car", he stated that it would have been impossible for him to do so as he'd have had to reload the machine gun's main magazine at least once or twice to fire that many rounds.

SPC Lozano's trial in absentia began on 17 April 2007. ^[3]

On October 25, 2007, an Italian court dismissed the charges against Lozano after determining that multinational forces in Iraq were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the country that sent them. [8]

[edit] Political Implications

Calipari's death caused a major international incident, since Calipari, a highly decorated SISMI agent, had become a national hero in Italy. As a result, there was significant pressure on the government of Italy to publicly support another investigation into the shooting, this time being conducted by prosecutors.

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi indicated in Parliament on May 5, 2005 that the government remains fully committed to supporting the ongoing judicial investigation into Calipari's death. One of the most prominent leaders of the opposition in the lower house of parliament, Piero Fassino, called for the United States to facilitate cooperation with the investigation, indicating that they believe the U.S. Army should produce SPC Lozano for questioning by the magistrates.

Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, head of the Italian Federation of the Greens, indicated that should the United States fail to cooperate with this investigation by allowing SPC Lozano to be questioned, he would push for a hearing at the International Court of Justice.

The non-Italian media had been reporting that it was unlikely that Italy would seek to try SPC Lozano in absentia were the U.S. to not render him to Italian custody. Despite the Italian government's desire to maintain a firm alliance with the United States an Italian judge has decided to try SPC Lozano in absentia.^[4]