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Italian gov't learns only Wednesday of accidental hostage killing in U.S. operation: FM

Xinhua, April 24, 2015 Adjust font size:

Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni on Friday said his government learnt only on Wednesday of the accidental killing of an Italian hostage in a U.S. counterterrorism operation against al-Qaeda in January.

Gentiloni said Prime Minister Matteo Renzi was informed by U.S. President Barack Obama "in the late evening of April 22" of the death of aid worker Giovanni Lo Porto along with an American hostage. Both were held by al-Qaeda in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"The government takes note of the statements of U.S. President Barack Obama and of his commitment to maximum transparency," Gentiloni stressed, reporting to the lower house.

According to the U.S. government, the Italian foreign minister pointed out, it was not possible to predict the presence of two Western hostages inside the al-Qaeda compound that was hit by a CIA drone strike in January.

The latest evidence that Lo Porto was alive dates back to last autumn, Gentiloni said. Lo Porto, 39, a native of Sicily in southern Italy, had disappeared in Pakistan in 2012 along with a German colleague, who was freed later, while working on a reconstruction project.

The Italian government since the first moment had activated all diplomatic channels with the Pakistani government to save Lo Porto, Gentiloni said. But later the military actions in the border area became more frequent, making more complex the information acquisition on the ground, he added.

Opposition in the Italian parliament and the local press have expressed criticism that there was not full transparency in the information exchange between the United States and the Italian government.

"The American apologies are not enough. They must explain and justify the operation," the head of the secret services parliamentary control group (Copasir) Giacomo Stucchi of the rightwing Northern League said.

Obama said on Thursday that he was taking "full responsibility" for the mistake, following a White House statement revealing that the two hostages were killed in the same operation.

Though stressing that intelligence about the venue as an al-Qaida compound was accurate, Obama admitted that the U.S. army made a mistake by alleging that no civilians were present. Endit