'No ransom paid' for Sgrena

2005-03-08 16:57

Rome - The suspected kidnappers of former Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena said in a video broadcast by Italian media on Tuesday that no ransom was paid to end the journalist's month-long captivity.

"The insurgency refuses to be paid," the voice-over of the video shown by public RAI television and news channel Sky24 said.

The voice added, however, that a ransom had been proposed, but did not give details.

The suspected abductors also claimed that the United States had sought to kill Sgrena who was wounded when a US patrol opened fire on her vehicle on the road to Baghdad airport on Friday.

Italian intelligence officer Nicola Galipari, who had negotiated her release, was killed in the shooting incident.

"The insurgency learnt that the CIA wanted to kill Giuliana, the journalist", the voice said according to the Italian translation on Sky24.

"The insurgency's intelligence official warned the journalist," the voice said, adding: "Everything we're saying can be verified."

But the White House on Monday rejected as "absurd" suggestions that US soldiers in Iraq deliberately tried to Sgrena.

"It's absurd to make any such suggestion, that our men and women in uniform would deliberately target innocent civilians. That's just absurd," spokesperson Scott McClellan told reporters in Washington.

Sgrena, the correspondent in Iraq of the communist Italian newspaper Il Manifesto, was kidnapped on February 4 and released last week.

- AFP