US, Italian reports split on responsibility for agent shooting after hostage release News
US, Italian reports split on responsibility for agent shooting after hostage release

[JURIST] In the wake of a joint statement [text] Friday indicating that the US and Italy had failed to agree [JURIST report] on circumstances surrounding the shooting of an Italian agent by US soldiers in Iraq, details of the divergent national reports have emerged. US Central Command released the full text of its 42-page report Saturday with an accompanying press release, concluding that the death of agent Nicola Calipari and the wounding of freed Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena was a "tragic accident" not warranting prosecution of any US military personnel. The report, sections of which were blacked out for distribution, also said that the US had not been informed in advance of Sgrena's release. The Italian Foreign Ministry has said that it will release the full text of its own report Monday [Italian Foreign Ministry press release, in Italian], but in the meantime elements of the report disclosed Sunday in the Italian press [Corriere della Sera report, in Italian] dispute the US allegation of no knowledge, dismiss much of the evidence of US soldiers as contradictory and unreliable and say that US personnel "tampered" with the scene of the incident. BBC News has more; the BBC also provides a summary of conflicting reports of what happened after Sgrena was released.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.