Some Good News

I've been a champion of the cause of Spc. Mark Lozano, an American soldier who faced trial in absentia in Italy for doing his duty in Iraq. Spc. Lozano was manning a checkpoint one night when a car came speeding toward him and, with scant seconds to decide, pulled the trigger on his machine gun.

The car contained a Communist reporter, Giuliana Sgrena, and an Italian Secret Service agent named Nicola Calipari. Calipari was an Italian hero, a brave man who had just rescued Sgrena from the clutches of Al Qaeda inside Fallujah.

Sgrena lived. Calipari was struck and killed. It was a tragic accident. But Sgrena, paranoid as most wacko communists are, imagined some American conspiracy to kill her. Italy, understandably moved by the death of Calipari, brought charges against Spc. Lozano.

As I explained here and here, one of the reasons this interested me was that unlike the terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Spc. Lozano was having to pay for his own legal defense. No swarms of white-shoe big-firm lawyers swooped in to save him. No one published a book of his soulful poetry.

But here's the good news, via Michelle and Howie at el Jawa: he won. Italy threw the charges out.

This is a sad affair all around and my thoughts are with Italy and with Nicola Calipari's widow, who does not feel justice was done. But Spc. Lozano did what he had to do and I am glad he is free.