Italian Justice Minister Roberto Castelli said today that communist reporter Giuliana Sgrena should stop making careless accusations. (Hat tip: Nancy.)

Italy’s justice minister urged former hostage Giuliana Sgrena on Friday to stop making “careless” accusations after being shot by US forces in Baghdad, saying she had already caused enough grief.

Sgrena has repeatedly suggesting US soldiers shot her on purpose and said on Friday she had little faith in a joint investigation by Italy and the United States into the “friendly fire” incident.

“She has created enormous problems for the government and also caused grief that perhaps was better avoided,” Justice Minister Roberto Castelli told reporters in Bologna. …

“Sgrena, I think, should perhaps be more careful. She has said a load of nonsense, speaks somewhat carelessly and makes careless comments,” Castelli said.

The BBC reports that an Italian general in Iraq now says he wasn’t told about the rescue/ransom operation: Sgrena operation ‘kept from US’.

US forces might not have known that slain Italian secret agent Nicola Calipari was in Iraq to secure a hostage’s freedom, Italian papers say.

Calipari was killed by US troops’ fire while escorting journalist Giuliana Sgrena by car to Baghdad airport. But the press quotes an Italian general who liaised between US forces and Italian intelligence as saying he did not know Calipari was on a rescue bid. His report is now in the hands of Rome prosecutors investigating the killing.

According to newspaper La Repubblica, Gen Mario Marioli helped the two Italian secret service agents obtain a special badge from the coalition forces on their arrival in Baghdad.

But Gen Marioli, who is the coalition forces’ second-in-command, reportedly was unaware that the officers were on a mission to free Ms Sgrena, and so the information he passed on to US officials was incomplete.

And Sgrena herself is now telling “her truth” to Italian prosecutors. (Hat tip: Rusty Shackleford.)

Italian prosecutors conducting their own investigation on Thursday questioned former Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena again in the Rome military hospital where she is recovering from a shoulder wound sustained in the March 4 shooting.