Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was freed by her captors today but US forces in Iraq mistakenly opened fire on the convoy taking her to safety, wounding her and killing an Italian secret service agent.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he had immediately summoned the US ambassador, declaring someone had to take responsibility for American soldiers opening fire.
Mr Berlusconi, one of US President George W. Bush's staunchest supporters in Iraq, told a news conference the agent had been shot dead by US forces at a checkpoint and that Sgrena had been wounded in the shoulder.
In Washington, the Pentagon said "multinational forces" had opened fire on a speeding vehicle in Baghdad, causing the death and wounding Sgrena.
"This news which should have been a moment of celebration, has been ruined by this firefight," said Gabriele Polo, editor of Ms Sgrena's Il Manifestopaper, a Rome-based Communist daily.
"An Italian agent has been killed by an American bullet. A tragic demonstration which we never wanted that everything that's happening in Iraq is completely senseless and mad," he told said, struggling to fight back tears.
The 57-year-old Ms Sgrena was kidnapped on February 4. Insurgents later released a video of her sobbing and wringing her hands as she pleaded for Italian troops to leave Iraq.
In new video aired on Al Jazeera today, Ms Sgrena was shown wearing a black dress and sitting in front of a table with a plate of fruit. Jazeera said that on the tape, Sgrena thanked her captors for treating her well.
Ms Sgrena was one of two female Western journalists abducted in Baghdad this year. Florence Aubenas of France's Liberation was seized along with her Iraqi driver on January 5.
Aubenas appeared in a videotape distributed by her captors this week, looking distraught and exhausted.