In March 2005, kidnapped Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was on her way to Baghdad airport after her captors freed her. At a U.S. checkpoint, soldiers opened fire, wounding her and killing Italian secret service agent Nicola Capilari.

Italy charged Mario Lozano in absentia after the Bush administration refused to turn him over. An Italian court has dropped the charges, saying it had no jurisdiction.

Here's what Lozano told Reuters on Oct. 25:

"I feel like there's a weight off my shoulders," Lozano told Reuters. "I could sleep easier now even though I have to still live with the fact I was involved in (taking) an innocent man's life." ...

But then he said this:

"If it wasn't for Sgrena, the situation would not have happened," Lozano said. "She went out there, she wanted to mingle with the terrorists and all that. ... She knows that if she is going to talk to terrorists, she knows there is a 99 percent chance she will get caught. ... It's her fault that this is happening -- not my fault."

Here is what Sgrena, who reports for Il Manifesto, told Democracy Now! :

GIULIANA SGRENA: I am really disappointed for the decision of the Italian court about the Lozano case, because they decided that Italy has no jurisdiction to put on trial Lozano. And this decision is based on a letter, a Colin Powell letter, that’s attached to the resolution -- UN resolution. But it is a unilateral letter that was not accepted by other governments. So, also the prosecutors and our lawyers found that this is not a base to avoid our sovereignty on the Calipari case.

But I think that Lozano is -- so he didn’t understand what happened in the court. So it was not absolved by the court, because there was no trial on the -- against Lozano for the moment, because this decision, it was just about the possibility or not to put Lozano on trial, but we will go to another court, a higher court, the Cassazione, to appeal against this sentence. And we hope and we are sure that this court will cancel the sentence, because a lot of jurists, very important jurists, said that it is a big mistake not to consider the jurisdiction of Italy. So I think that is just a step, this one, and we will succeed and put Lozano on trial. So I think that -- I don’t know if the lawyers didn’t explain him what happened in Italy. So, it’s not the case of a trial that absolved him; it’s just a case of no jurisdiction for the moment, but, I repeat, for the moment.

AMY GOODMAN: Giuliana Sgrena, I now wanted to ask you about what Mario Lozano said, saying that it’s your fault, that you went out there, you wanted to “mingle with the terrorists and all that.” He goes on to say, “Then she gets caught. Now we have to send -- now we have to send good men to go after this one person,” that “she put herself in the situation. […] She knows that if she’s going to go talk to terrorists, she knows there’s a 99% chance she will get caught. So, why did she do that for? […] I don’t understand. So it’s her fault that this [is happening] […] It’s not my fault.” Your response, Giuliana?

GIULIANA SGRENA: Oh, it’s not true. I was just doing my work, and many other journalists went to interview the refugees, the refugees of Fallujah. Me, I usually go to interview the refugees, because I think that it’s the people that more suffer for the situation. And also, in this case, I went there just to interview these refugees.

I know that for military, army, it’s not the case to go around and to do an independent work, because they want the journalists just to be embedded, but I can say that in the same day, the same moment that I was there doing to interview the refugees of Fallujah, there was also a photographer working for the US Time taking pictures there. So I was not doing a work with terrorists, because if not everybody work with terrorists. I was just there to interview refugees.

And I think that this is the only way to do our job as we have to do it, because we have to listen to the people that is suffering under the occupation and not just interview the commanders or people that have weapons in their -- that they’re using weapons. So I think that I was in a right position, and I will do always the same when I go around the world.

And I don’t understand what mean Lozano by saying that I was going there, doing something with terrorists. They were not terrorists. What means? So we don’t have the chance to do our work? Is it true that now we have not the chance to do our work true in Iraq, but this is because of the occupation and, of course, also because nobody in Iraq want to have witness there to see what is going on. But I was just doing my work.