The commander of the 31st Fighter
Wing at the USAF base at Aviano (Pordenone), Brigadier Generale
Tad D. Clark, on Wednesday expressed his condolences to the
parents of a 15-year-old Italian boy knocked over and killed by
an allegedly drunk US aircraftswoman on a cycle path not far
from the base on Saturday night-Sunday morning.
"I express the sympathies of our community for this tragedy,"
Clark said in a private meeting.
"We are really involved in your huge pain".
Clark said US institutions will stay close to the family in the
future, also.
Julia Bravo, the 20-year-old aircraftswoman who allegedly
knocked over and killed Giovanni Zanier, must be tried in Italy
and not the US, the boy's mother said Tuesday.
The US usually tries its own citizens back in the States even if
they have committed crimes abroad.
A case in point was the Cermis cable car disaster near Aviano in
1998 in which the US pilots who flew too low and cut a cable
plunging 20 people to their deaths were acquitted of
manslaughter in the US, straining relations with Italy.
Another case was the 2005 shooting at a Baghdad checkpoint of an
Italian intelligence officer, Nicola Calipari.
"That woman must be tried in Italy and serve her full term,"
said Barbara Scandella, mother of Giovanni Zanier.
Bravo was reportedly found to have a blood alcohol level four
times the legal limit in Italy, police said.
The woman, who was driving back from a night out, reportedly
lost control of her car after a roundabout and hit Zanier on a
cycle path at around two thirty in the morning. Zanier's mother
had told him to walk back from the bar he had attended with two
friends even though his home was several kilometres away.
The two friends were unhurt in the crash.
Bravo has been arrested and placed under house arrest, charged
with vehicular homicide.
The local council at Porcia recently ordered street lights in
the spot to be turned off at two a.m., but police said the
accident would probably not have been averted even with the
lights on.
An eye witness who came out of the same disco as Bravo
reportedly told police Tuesday that "that woman was completely
drunk when she took the wheel. She couldn't even turn the
ignition on"," reported the Gazzettino newspaper. Bravo drove
off in a direction that was diametrically opposite the Aviano
base, the witness said.
Bravo on Tuesday said "I'm destroyed by sorrow, I apologize for
the pain I have caused." She exercised her right to remain
silent when questioned about the incident, however. Bravo had
asked only to make a spontaneous statement to apologize to
Zanier's parents and his brother. She was remanded in custody,
under house arrest at the Aviano base, with charges of vehicular
homicide upheld.
As well as the Cermis disaster, Italo-US relations were also
strained by the accidental killing in Iraq by a US soldier of
intelligence officer Nicola Calipari in an incident at a
checkpoint along the Baghdad airport road on March 4, 2005. He
was the only soldier at the checkpoint to open fire and he also
injured Calipari's driver and fellow SISMI agent, Andrea
Carpani, and journalist Giuliana Sgrena. An unprecedented joint
enquiry by US and Italian investigators into the incident failed
to reach an agreed conclusion.
The American members cleared the checkpoint soldiers of all
responsibility and refused to hand Lozano over for trial, while
the Italians blamed the US's organisation of the checkpoint.
Calipari, a former policeman who rescued several Mafia kidnap
victims before joining intelligence agency SISMI two years
before his death, has become a national hero in Italy.
Over the Mt Cermis incident, Italy's supreme Court of Cassation
ruled in August 2000 that the Italian courts have no
jurisdiction in the civil suit filed against the US for its role
in the disaster two years previously. Twenty died on February 3,
1998 when a US Marine Corps plane sliced through a mountain
cableway in the Dolomites near Trento, sending a gondola
plunging to the ground and killing on those board - all foreign
skiers except for the Italian operator. The families of the
Mount Cermis victims were awarded the maximum indemnity by the
Italian government, 3.8 billion lire each for a total of 76
billion lire ($38 million). Under Nato agreements, the US
government had to pay 75% of the total.
A US military court acquitted the pilot and co-pilot of
responsibility, only sentencing them on minor charges. An
Italian parliamentary commission of inquiry into the case
concluded in February 2001 that the pilots had committed
''aggravated manslaughter''.
The head of the commission, Ermanno Iacobellis, said that at the
time of the tragedy, in February 1988, ''Italy and the people of
the Trentino region lived through a moment of subjection to
higher needs of Nato training.'' The panel spoke of ''a tragedy
foretold'' because of previous low-flying flights in the area.
The report was highly critical of the US military court which
acquitted the pilots, Capt. Richard Ashby and Capt. Joseph
Schweitzer, giving them only a dishonourable discharge because
they had tampered with evidence of the flight. But it also
pointed the finger at the Nato chain of command in Italy which
had in fact allowed low-level flights to become routine.
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